As the World Doesn't Turn
by PodBayDoors
Summary: This is my Sam-and-Jack-stranded-on-a-planet fic, from Jack's POV. End of Season 8. 2009 Blue Moon Award Winner, SG Fan Award Nominee. There's some science, romance, angst and there's even some whump. Prequel to The theory of General relativity.
1. Starry Night

Stargate SG-1and SGA and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime / Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author

* * *

I wrote this in a present tense which can feel weird at first, just stick with it!

As the title of the story indicates, this is a cross between scifi and romance. This is my "Sam and Jack stranded on a planet" story, but it's set at the end of season 8. It's an AU story where _Threads _doesn't happen, although it works with the rest of what goes on in Season 8 so it's sort of a diverging/converging timeline.

I mean, with _Moebius_ and _Continuum _happening since then, who's to say it _didn't_ happen?

Some of this is based on the original Stargate movie. I also get to "fix" some of the Stargate science that bugs me, like wormhole theory, gate addresses and planetary rotation.

* * *

This chapter sets the stage for ensuing shippiness, and Carter and O'Neill find the Ancients made mistakes, too.

* * *

_**Starry Night**_

"_This_ looks like the start of an average bad day." General Jack O'Neill states with a jaded sigh after walking out of the event horizon onto a stargate platform that looks absolutely nothing like the SGC. "Carter?" Her name is a serious of questions and statements all rolled into a single word.

Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter dons her sunglasses and surveys the uninhabited flat clearing. A dark, impenetrable forest encloses the small area like a stockade and other than the stargate perched on a simple stone platform there's not a trace of civilization, human or otherwise. "I'm not sure, sir." They're definitely not in Cheyenne Mountain- in fact, there's no mountain of any kind in any direction, and the effect is claustrophobic.

O'Neill's unimpressed. "If there's been a stargate in Minnesota all this time, I'm really gonna be pissed." He digs out his monocular and quickly scans the tree line, wondering if Reynolds misdialed- but shrugs that thought off just as quickly as it comes. Earth's address is hardwired into each SG member. They can dial in their sleep, under fire, semi-conscious, or under the influence of whatever alien drug had been accidentally ingested. Finding no visible threats, he cocks his head and turns to her expectantly.

Her eyes skim over the stargate and he swears he can hear the circuits hum as she does a full 360 sweep of the area until her gaze finally lands on him. "We've never been here before. I'm pretty sure no team ever has. We've either jumped stargates or gone back in time several million years."

"That's quite a dichotomy, Colonel," O'Neill says dryly. "One's an inconvenience and the other's the end of life as we know it."

"_Much_ more likely the wormhole jumped gates, sir."

"Thank you, Carter." He's not interested in theories or statistics, just the bottom line. And if it's coming from her, that's good enough for him. He waits on the platform and lets her do her job, hands crossed over the P90 he insisted on bringing to P3X-812 while he and Carter were reviewing safety and security for a new off-world base there. He might be a general at the SGC, but in the field he's just another target.

She descends the steps to the DHD and her thoughts move on to other things. "P3X-812 might not be a great site for a trinium mine if the wormhole isn't stable," she muses, "It's got to be near a huge gravity well."

He's tired and his back hurts from sleeping in a tent for three days, even though he's been promoted from the ground to a cot, but he tries hard not to let his utter lack of fascination with their circumstances dampen her enthusiasm for things he considers to be annoying distractions. "Dial that up and you can spend the rest of the week solving the problem, okay?"

Carter smiles. It might not be a problem _with_ a solution, but she seems to appreciate the sentiment. She reaches the base of the DHD and stands contemplating it, smile vanishing and hands still as they grip the smooth edges of the machine as if to keep her from collapsing.

O'Neill notices the silence first. No matter what world they're on, the gate and the DHD make noise. Daniel had always maintained the gate was designed for use by a variety of beings with different sensory capabilities, like Braille on an ATM. Personally, O'Neill thinks the Ancients just had an eye for style. At any rate, there's always sound, light and spinning. He shifts his gaze from a relentless surveillance of the site back to her face because the years have taught him that as a means of gathering intelligence in a hurry, nothing surpasses watching Carter's expression. One look can save him a lot of time and talking, or break his heart- but he isn't going to dwell on that right this minute, because right now she's telling him they're in serious trouble. His voice drops a notch. "Carter?" All the questions are different now, but he knows she still understands.

She lifts her eyes as he starts down the steps, looking past him to examine the gate again. "Sir, the symbols- there's not a single one like ours."

"Damn." O'Neill examines the DHD and the gate. "Try the earth positions anyway."

Carter nods and enters the coordinates, her hand moving by memory, hesitating when she gets to the last one. "All right, the point of origin is…"

"This one." He pushes a glyph comprised of lines and dots. "Just a guess," he grins, sweeping his automatic toward the gate steps which are adorned with multiple carvings of the same symbol. She smiles appreciatively and pushes the central crystal.

His grin fades, however, when he looks at the stargate. "_That_ sucks."

"Yes, sir." They watch the chevrons blink out without producing an event horizon. It reminds him of trying to turn over an engine with a dead battery- a flicker of hope and then nothing. But he doesn't want to go to the store for a six-pack of Guinness; he wants to go to _earth_. Trying to quell the sense of general fucked-upness that he seems to encounter with alarming frequency, he stays positive. "It's going to take a little time, is all, Carter."

"More than a little, General."

"Okay," he shrugs, "we'll take turns putting in the addresses."

"Do you remember what Chloe said about possible gate combinations, sir?" She removes her sunglasses and looks at him directly, something she's more or less avoided doing for months now.

The effect isn't lost on him, though he's not sure it's the one she intended. Carter's eyes sometimes have a way of making his mind wander at the damnedest times. "Chloe? Oh- yeah. It was a big number. So we better get started." Snapping out of his momentary distraction, he sits down with his back against the side of the platform, indicating that it's _Carter_ who needs to get started. "But look on the bright side, we know the last glyph."

"That improves the odds substantially."

"See?" he says in a tone that suggests she's unnecessarily worried, as usual.

"From 63 billion-to-one to two billion-to-one."

He sighs in resignation and rests his head against the wall. "So… you're saying that the likelihood of us getting home without a lot of fuss is the same as the number of 'r's in 'fat chance?"

She walks over and slumps down on the short, dry grass beside him. "Yeah. We're going to need help."

"We've been in worse shape," he points out, though that's not exactly comforting to either one of them. He looks up at the cloudless blue sky, and realizes that there are no birds, either up there or twittering in the trees. It's then that he notices there is absolutely no sound on this planet, no wind, nothing. He doesn't know what that means, but it can't be good. Deviations from earth's blueprints seldom are.

"There might not be anyone here, though," she says.

"That might be a _good_ thing." They've been in similar situations a hundred times before, and he has to admit it's getting old. Still, there's no reason to panic. "What now, Colonel?"

"The terrain is no help at all, but there's a road or something over there…" she stops mid-sentence and looks at him suspiciously. He's smiling.

"I haven't been calling the shots for a while, and I'm not about to start now," he states. No, he thinks it's much more fun to kick back and watch Carter take the lead than do it himself, and besides, it does gives him an excuse to look at her which is always a very nice thing to do as long as he doesn't think about it too much. He wonders if not thinking about it too much is going to become a full-time occupation for as long as they're here.

"What we need isn't going to be delivered to us on FRED." She slips her sunglasses on again. "I guess we're going to have to skate to the puck."

He smiles at her use of the phrase he'd found useful so often and wonders how many more of his little idiosyncrasies have rubbed off on her. Probably not too many or she wouldn't be doing as well as she is. He gets to his feet and hoists up the P-90, then turns to find her opening an energy bar. "You're never gonna last if you're hungry already, Carter."

She shoots him a look as she stashes the unwrapped food in her pack and he has to admit to himself that she's definitely worried, and that makes him worried enough to not want to show it. With the mylar wrapper and a sturdy stick they construct a marker that can be easily seen by a probe or search party. Then they copy the glyphs into her notebook and leave the clearing, the twinkling foil remaining as the only sign they'd been there at all.

The forest is still and eerily quiet as they trek down the pathway, the stones beneath their feet perfectly fitted without much sign of wear. The road could be five or five hundred years old depending on the planet's weather. Certainly, O'Neill thinks as he watches her sweep away wisps of damp hair that curl annoyingly (to her) and attractively (to him) around her face, the weather today can only be described as _hot_. "I was hoping we'd make it somewhere by nightfall, but I don't think that's going to be a problem," he comments, shading his eyes from the sun as he judges its position in the sky.

"No, I don't think it's moved much, although I'd have to stop for a few days to get better measurements. You know, sir, Antarctica is looking pretty good right now," she says, taking a rationed sip of water.

He snorts. "For having been there three times, I sure don't remember much about the place." He doesn't add that the only thing he _does_ remember is her. He's not interested in making her feel uncomfortable or in stirring up his own feelings of having lost something that was never his to begin with.

For reasons unclear to him, she insists on stirring up those feelings anyway. "I remember," she says simply, staring absent-mindedly down the flat pathway. She doesn't elaborate and he doesn't ask as they both consider the same memories from different angles, the last time being so recent he ought to be able to remember every tiny detail- but he can only recall the crushing cold and the memory of her face, beautiful blue eyes full of so much pain. She's never elaborated and he's never asked. They fall back into silence as the miles wear on, the sun hanging high in the sky as the hours pass.

O'Neill knows she won't rest until he does, and when his watch tells him it's after midnight, he's happy to oblige. "I've been on desk duty too long," he says with exaggerated relief, edging his pack onto a MALP-sized rock beside the road. Finding his canteen, he slides the pack onto the ground and watches while Carter easily takes off her pack and swings it down; and calculates that his stuff can't weigh _that_ much more than hers. Desk duty- right. That and fifteen years- but he consoles himself with the fact that testosterone still counts for something, sometimes. And sometimes it's nothing but trouble.

"How's that coming?"

"Huh?" It takes him a second to realize she's _not_ reading his mind.

"The desk duty, sir. Are you adjusting?" As if embarrassed that she doesn't know the answer to that question, she ducks her head and assiduously searches for her water bottle.

"Uh, well, you know. Someone's got to do it, Carter." He wonders when it was exactly that they had stopped talking to each other, and decides that it was the night she'd shown him that ring.

"So you're going to be there for a while?"

"Looks like it."

She sits against the base of the boulder, out of his line of sight. "For what it's worth, sir, you're doing a great job."

"It's worth a lot," he nods thoughtfully, his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses he's been wearing for eighteen hours straight. She brings the canteen down from her lips and screws the cap on tightly without any reply. "You're doing a damn fine job yourself, Lt. Colonel. Although, 'Major' was a whole lot easier to say."

"It was easier to do, too."

"Sounds like you miss me, Carter."

"Yes, Sir." she says, looking up at him warmly. "We do."

O'Neill sighs slightly at her choice of pronouns, and then stands up to stash his canteen back in his pack. "How about I relieve you of command for a couple of hours?"

"Thank you, sir." She takes off her jacket and folds it up, then curls up on the forest floor which is soft and cool with millennia's worth of pine needles, promising rest after the hot, tiring trek. He waits a few short minutes until she's asleep, then quietly crouches down to pick up his P-90. Noticing an errant lock of hair threatening to tickle her face, he gently tucks the yellow strands behind her ear and then rises silently.

She listens as his careful footsteps disappear into the underbrush before turning her face into her jacket with a long, deep sigh.

--

O'Neill wakes to the rustling of dry leaves, at first comforting and then alarming as he realizes they've not yet encountered wind _or_ leaves on the planet. Carefully raising the bill of his cap off of his eyes, he finds Carter sitting in the shade against a massive windfall, turning a page in her notebook back and forth repetitively. "Got it memorized yet?"

She glances up and smiles. "Yeah, and I think I know what the problem is." She puts the notebook down and brushes the forest floor into a uniform surface, marking the duff in two spots with her finger. "You see, sir, this gate is similar to the Abydos and Earth gates, which have a lot in common..,"

"_Besides_ starting this whole damned mess?"

She smiles tolerantly. "Well, they started the whole damned mess because they're similar. They connect the oldest human civilizations and they have different glyphs in the shape of the actual constellations in their respective skies," She stops to scatter a few small stones around the planets.

"Yeah," he snorts, "Kowalsky almost killed Daniel over that fact."

"I thought _you_ were the one who said Daniel was full of sh-"

"Colonel," he warns.

She smiles again and he wonders just how much Daniel has told her over the years. "Anyway, translating their coordinates into ours," she says, sweeping her hand through the stars from one planet and then the other, "only worked because the planets were close together and the constellations weren't that different." Pleased with her rustic diagram, she looks back at O'Neill who had pulled his cap back down over his face. "Sir," she says with obvious annoyance.

"Aw, Carter, I'm just keeping myself deliberately confused in case I fall into enemy hands." He rouses himself anyway just to make her happy.

She turns back to the stone star chart. "Eventually, the Ancients quit making addresses like that, because the coordinates for any given stargate will look completely different depending upon where you are in the galaxy. it's a little like handing out different phone numbers to each person who has to call you."

He thinks about the phone in his office ringing incessantly. "That's a lot of phone numbers."

"Yeah, and it's the same for everyone. If, for example, you want to call Daniel from my lab, you have to use the number I have for him. You can't use the number that works from your office."

"I'd rather drop in unannounced, anyway."

She smiles and tries to keep him on task. "Luckily for us, the Ancients mostly just used the symbols from Earth for their later gates, because ours is the oldest gate. So no matter where we are, we only need to know one address for Earth."

"Except for here." And Abydos, he guesses. But none of them will be going back there ever again.

"Right."

"So..." He thinks it's well past time for the bottom line.

"So, I have to do what the computer did. I have to translate our constellations. In 3D." Her eyes are wide and blue and O'Neill sees just how much pressure she's put on herself. Because this time there's no big, fancy machine she can manipulate to pull it off, there's only her exquisitely fine-tuned mind and a little laptop computer running on solar cells.

Although, if he were a betting man he'd put his money on Carter and the little laptop.

He remembers waiting impatiently for their early missions because the SGC mainframe computers could only translated a couple of addresses a _month_. But that doesn't discourage him because it isn't his place to keep up with changing technology. His place is just to keep them safe and help her any way he can- which usually isn't much.

"Then there's no problem," he says with confidence. "Hell, you could've written that little _Starry Night _program you gave me for Christmas." That had been her latest futile attempt at reducing his computer illiteracy.

In an instant the concern is erased from her face. "That's it, sir!" He doesn't know what he did but he's willing to take the credit for it as she launches herself at her backpack, rifling through it until she pulls out her computer. In seconds she's brought up the familiar graphic of the night sky. He looks at her quizzically, wondering what an astrophysicist is dong with amateur astronomy software. "I like to bring our stars with us," she admits, sitting back on her heels. "It's a little like bringing along a few family photos." He studies her face for a moment and thinks he sees a little of that naïve young captain he pushed through the gate so many years ago. Blushing slightly, she adds defensively, "Architects still like Lincoln Logs, you know."

"I'm going to let that slide, just because you're so damned smart." And beautiful, but he doesn't say that- he just gets to his feet with a grin. "What's next, Colonel?"

Carter stands and out of cautious habit scuffs over the marks with her boot. "We wait for night." They shade their eyes and look toward the sun riveted in the sky.

--

"No solar flares on either sun. No energy discharges at the gate. Nothing at all that would have caused the wormhole to fail or jump." Physicist Dr. Rodney McKay paces the briefing room, rapping his clipboard with a pencil while the remains of SG-1 study the Plexiglas map of the galaxy. The map has been their focal point for two days now, even though there's nothing new on it. It's become like a fireplace or window onto a busy street- something to stare at while their minds work over every possibility. Truth be told, someone's been staring at this star chart continuously more than any other map on the planet ever since the diagram was first installed eight years ago. It helps everyone deny the distances involved, all the Milky Way stargates contained on one small wall in the briefing room.

"Okay, if it wasn't a problem at either end, then what could have interfered with the wormhole between here and there?" Lt. General George Hammond queried, having been called back from Washington to temporarily command the SGC.

"General, there _is_ no 'between here and there'," McKay points out with a sense of rising frustration. "The wormhole joins two areas of space-time directly. Space-time itself would have had to change- but only temporarily, because we just got a message through to Col. Reynolds without a problem."

"Well, if there was no solar flare, we have to assume time didn't change," Dr. Daniel Jackson muses. His many degrees aren't in the "hard" sciences, but he's learned a thing or two from Sam over the years. "That just leaves space."

"Oh yeah," McKay says sarcastically, "and there's hardly any of _that_ out there."


	2. High Noon

It's getting hotter. Thanks for reading!

* * *

**High Noon**

_"Well, if there was no solar flare, we have to assume time didn't change," Dr. Daniel Jackson muses. His many degrees aren't in the "hard" sciences, but he's learned a thing or two from Sam over the years. "That just leaves space."_

_"Oh yeah," McKay says sarcastically, "and there's hardly any of __that out there."_

--

Carter catches the silver glint through the trees just before O'Neill does, and breathes a sigh of relief. "Water, sir."

"Yeah. One down and two to go." He pauses at the edge of the meandering rivulet as it crosses through a small square culvert under the road, the opening barely visible through clumps of ferns and flowering plants. The cool air wafts over them as she kneels down to replenish their empty canteens, dropping an iodine tablet in each of them, and then soaking their caps in the crystal stream.

"Ugh," he screws the lids shut. "You really need to work on your cocktail recipe, Carter."

"Sorry sir. We can't take any chances. If something goes wrong, I can't just gate you home." She stands up and hands him his dripping cap. "If anything is wrong- I mean anything, sir- you have to tell me. I don't want a re-enactment of _The Snows of Kilimanjaro_."

"I'm pretty sure I didn't gouge my leg on the way through the gate. Although I could get use to you catering to my every…"

"I mean it." She doesn't laugh, or even smile.

"It works both ways," he points out, suddenly serious as he jams her canteens into the side pockets of her pack. She nods and they move out again, keeping to the road as it gradually turns to parallel the creek, staying silent because they know they're close to something.

Within a few hundred yards she stops and raises her field glasses. "Two down, one to go." She hands over the binoculars and squints to see the small stone village shimmering through the heat waves rising up from a grassy field, the only break in the dense forest they had yet seen apart from the area around the stargate.

"I'll take point," he says as casually as he had a hundred times before, not meeting her eyes as he readies his weapon. He has the luxury of not having to explain the sudden change in command, which is convenient because he's not sure if he can.

It's easy going securing a deserted village, however, and in a few minutes the tension between them evaporates in the hot dry air. Returning to the first building, O'Neill uses the barrel of his automatic to swing open the door. "Friendly folks. They don't lock their doors."

"Maybe they're just forgetful." She flashes a little knowing grin at him and steps with relief into the cool shade of the structure. "It's got to be twenty degrees cooler in here. These walls must be an incredible heat sink."

He follows her in but doesn't set down his gun as he peers cautiously into each small room. "This place is familiar in an evil, goa'uldish kind of way." He finally relaxes his guard just enough to take off his cap and ruffle his hair, glad to be out of the sun and dust.

"I wish Daniel was here." She locks eyes with him briefly, unmistakable worry etched on her face, then runs her hand over the smooth, skillfully dressed stone walls that hold not even a trace of mortar just like the joints of the stones that had comprised the Abydosian pyramids.

"He can't read what isn't here," O'Neill says quietly."The goa'uld kept 'em stupid."

She nods in grudging acceptance of that fact, and turns to open a window in the dark room, unlatching a simple shuttered window. The light floods in, her short hair moving gently in the first breeze they'd felt the entire two days on the planet. There's something so sweetly domestic and out of place about the scene that O'Neill stands mesmerized, forgetting where and who they are until the heat from the window nudges him back into reality.

"Better close that," he says, a little too gruffly. For the first time, it dawns on him how damned difficult being stranded with Samantha Carter is going to be. He shakes the pack off of his back and sets it on a stone bench near the doorway. "I guess this is as good as any."

Carter takes one last glance out then shuts and latches the window. "I can take the one right over there."

"I think you should take the one right over _here_," he nods in the direction of the small room through the doorway opposite the fireplace as he loosens the laces on his boots. He doesn't see her blush in the darkened room, but notices her hesitation and doesn't know quite what to make of it, because he's resigned himself to the fact that she sees him as more of a father figure than anything else. His tone softens a bit. "I won't borrow your cream rinse without asking, okay?"

She smiles without answering and then walks into the small room, able to make out a wooden sleeping platform in the dark onto which she sets her pack. Removing her flashlight from it, she stops and then lays the light carefully on a stone shelf that's been carved into the wall, choosing instead to open the window slightly. He doesn't tell her to shut it this time, but watches through the doorway as her eyes follow a sliver of golden light across the windowsill and onto the first inch or so of floor. He's never seen anyone so interested in a thin beam of light before, and he stops working on his boots as he sees a triumphant smile forming on her lips, her fingers held out to touch the light. He slowly shakes his head in amazement, realizing she's the only person he's ever known who really _can_ pull something out of thin air. She turns and his eyes drop back to his laces, the negative imprint of the light dancing across his own hands until his eyes adjust to the dark.

Carter quickly organizes her gear, gathering up the first aid kit and food supplies. Stepping into the common area, she finds he has done the same. "We've got rude hosts," he grumbles, "It's one thing not being home to welcome us. But they didn't even leave out any _cookies_."

She eases herself onto the worn wooden planks of the floor. "I wonder what happened to them. It looks like they just walked out, and not too long ago."

"Were herded out, more likely." He stretches out his legs on the planking. "If we _are_ close to where Abydos was, it might have been that reptilian-brained Apophis trying to cut his losses."

"Reptilian-brained?"

"I'm a general, now, Carter. 'Snake-head' just won't do."

She chuckles and he smiles. "The sun isn't straight overhead anymore, sir. I think I can set up a sundial."

"And then?" He pulls off his boots and tries to recall the last time he's worn them for forty hours straight. He's getting soft.

"Then I'll know how long until sundown."

"And then?"

"Then we watch the stars come out." She reaches behind her for her laptop and _Starry Night_. "Of course, you're welcome to watch them now, if you want. I've got to get started on these calculations."

"Go ahead and play with your Lincoln Logs, Carter," he says, rolling out his sleeping bag to cushion him from the floor. "I'm turning in." O'Neill sets his boots aside and flops down, his back to her. She watches him for a moment and then slowly returns the computer to its case, a look of sad surprise playing across her features.

He just stares at the wall.

--

They keep their days synchronized on Earth time, sleeping and standing watch in shifts that limit their time together, which is a good thing given the sweltering, confined spaces they're in and the stress they're under. Over the course of the next few weeks they encounter no hostiles, figure out the cistern system, re-shingle thin spots in the roof, and perhaps most importantly, discover an overgrown community garden. "Three down?" Carter asks doubtfully, uncovering a nondescript tuber from the desiccated soil. She lets O'Neill try it later that day, makes sure he doesn't die of alien potato poisoning, and by the end of the week they've filled what he interprets to be a root cellar beneath the house, although he thinks it would make a pretty good wine cellar, too.

"That could be your winter project," she says as she shuts the door, wiping the dirt from her palms.

"Winter?"

"Night." She looks at the squat buildings around them. "That's what bothers me about this place. These houses just look like they're waiting for bad weather."

O'Neill nods, glancing from the huts to the forest. "Well, that's why we have spruce trees."

"Aren't these pine trees?" Carter hasn't given them much thought beyond the fact that she's very tired of looking at them.

"Spruce. Just like in Minnesota."

"You always said there were _pine_ trees at your cabin."

"Guess you'll never know, will you?"

She stares at him in surprise and he knows he's said way too much. Quickly retreating behind a carefree smile, he says, "I think what you're trying to tell me is that I need to go chop some wood."

"Yeah," she says uncertainly, "I guess so."

--

Later that 24-hour cycle, he wakes to silence and the persistent heat, a sheen of sweat having accumulated across his bare chest and shoulders even while he slept. He swears there isn't much difference in temperature now between the interior and the exterior of the house but knows twilight isn't all that far away, thank God. He stares at the rough ceiling boards and waits to hear Carter in the back yard fiddling quietly with the sundial, a makeshift ruler and her notebook; or maybe the erratic sounds of data entry. In the absolute silence of a world with apparently no animate life, any sound at all is amplified- but today he hears nothing. He isn't really alarmed yet, so he gets up and pokes around the house a bit until he notices her radio is gone. Picking up his own, he calls her but receives only static in return. Without bothering to find his shirt he reacts by checking his sidearm, grabbing the automatic and barreling out the door, very nearly colliding with her as he rounds the corner of the house.

"Where the hell were _you_?" He doesn't notice that her arms are full of wet clothing, with her hair combed back and the clothes on her body still quite damp. Despite his harsh words, he's visibly relieved.

Her glance flicks quickly over his torso before meeting his eyes. "At the pond. I didn't want to wake you."

"I radioed you." It's more of an accusation than a statement.

Carter shifts her weight uneasily. He's really ticked off at her and that's extremely rare- in fact, this might be a first. "I guess I was in the water."

"Dammit, Carter, you put down the radio and your sidearm, too."

"There's no one here," she points out the obvious.

"There never is- until you let your guard down."

Stung by what she interprets as implications of incompetence, she veers around him and begins to toss the clothing on a scraggly hedge they've been using as a makeshift clothesline. "I just wanted some privacy, sir." She's careful to turn her face so he can't see her blinking back the tears.

O'Neill watches her lithe, tan arms angrily jerking tiny articles of clothing into place and the tension building up within him suddenly shifts. He lets his eyes drift down to the tank top that stretches over the the delicate hollows of her collarbone before conforming to her breasts like a second skin, like his hands in some alternate timeline. Her reach hikes the top up, drawing his gaze to the creamy white skin of her narrow waist, the flare of her hips barely holding up the damp BDUs perilously clinging to the firm contours beneath. The slanting red rays of the sun casts sharp shadows, highlighting every curve, dip and angle of her body with light and dark as if somehow he might overlook how beautiful she is. But he's never done that, not even when he tries to.

And he's really trying. "While I might prefer watching your six, Carter," he says with a great deal more control than he feels, "my job is to cover it."

"Sorry sir," she says without a trace of regret as she tosses her over shirt on the hedge and turns to face him, "I just didn't think it would bother you." Whether she means to be sarcastic or whether she really doesn't know that she looks like an airman's fantasy isn't clear. What _is_ clear is that she isn't going to back down.

A surge of anger, relief and white-hot desire trip the circuit breakers in his mind and his last rational thought is to drop the P-90 before wrapping her in an over-arm body hold, pulling her nearly off the ground. "Do _not_," he whispers hoarsely into her damp, clean hair, his arms locked around her, "play games with me, Carter."

Even if he hadn't squeezed the wind out of her she wouldn't be able to speak, stunned as she is by his actions. Neither of them move for a moment as he holds her, cool smooth skin under his rough hands, her lips millimeters away from the hot pulse of his neck and certain disaster. Her defensive options are limited and he finds himself anticipating the feel of her mouth on his shoulder, her teeth sinking into his skin- but it doesn't come. Instead, she manages to draw a breath, the slight movement of her body against his finally bringing him back to his senses and he abruptly lets her go, picks up his gun and stalks off, leaving her standing alone.

After just having lectured her about taking off by herself, he doesn't go very far. She quickly finds him sitting on the floor in the near-dark of the house next door that they use as a storage area and workshop. "Sir?"

He's actually relieved she found him because the last thing he wants is for her to be afraid. He turns to look at her, but sees only her silhouette back-lit by sunshine. "This isn't going to work."

"I already know that."

"I mean- I can't be in charge here."

"Oh." She comes into the room and sits opposite of him, and his eyes gradually adjust to the point where he can see her face.

"You're the leader of SG-1. It would have been ridiculous not to go, and even more ridiculous to wake me up and tell me you were going."

"'Ridiculous' would not be the word I'd choose, sir. More like 'dangerous'."

O'Neill nods his head in agreement. He would still have grabbed her; only with a gun to her head until he woke up and figured out she wasn't a threat. He never sleeps well off-world. "What about a note, for crying out loud?"

"I couldn't… spare the paper." She doesn't wanted to tell him that. He'd helped her copy the glyphs and she knows there's no way he'd miss the fact that her notebook is brand new. And yet not enough. Which means it's going to take a whole lot of calculations and charts to get them off the planet.

He's silent for a while, understanding her reluctance to tell him anything that might disappoint him. After all, she's the lieutenant colonel and he's the general. "When were you going to tell me that you were worried about plan A?"

"When plan A fails."

"It doesn't always fail." He smiles ruefully. "Carter, this is survival, not combat. On the list of things to worry about, following orders is pretty low. Way below things like, oh- _talking_ to me. Or doing what you think is right. There's only us here."

Carter just nods and straps her holster back on her leg.

"But you knew all that."

"I guess so."

"The next time you have a point to make, could you just do it verbally?"

"Next time, I'll be able to." She gets to her feet and waits to see if he's coming, but he just watches her without saying a word until she finally walks out on a superior officer for the first time in her life.

O'Neill sighs and rests his head back against the wall. He knows weakening the command structure might create a problem for them if they make it back to the SGC, but as a rule he never hesitates to trade a real problem for one that's only theoretical. Unfortunately, it's also going to make another real problem worse. He remembers the near-panic of finding her missing and the pure sensual pleasure of her body against his, and realizes he still cares about her a lot more than he's supposed to. And it _hurts_. Which really takes him by surprise because most of the time he thinks he can't feel much of anything anymore. And God help him, that makes him angry, too, but he couldn't even face that until today when he'd just about lost it because she'd not only rejected his love but his authority as well.

Only she hadn't. He had given her no choice, and she reacted. That's the way it had always been.

But getting worked up over Carter is nothing new and nothing he can't repress as efficiently as he has for the past several years except for one thing, the thing that hit him so hard he had to sit down just to breathe. She hadn't fought back. Not only is she getting married, but she's also highly trained airman and she had _let_ him pin her down. For a split second she had seemed just like she had in that time loop. Surprised, a little shocked, and completely willing to be where she was. Jack draws a deep breath and wonders if they'll ever stop fighting- the rules, their feelings, the war. And now each other.

Her clothes are already bone-dry when Carter retrieves them from the hedge and retreats to her room to dress. Slipping the tank top off over her head, she pauses and lifts it back up to her face. Her eyes suddenly open and with a look of puzzlement she stares through her window at the shuttered house next door. "You had a point to make," she says in a quiet voice, "and you didn't do it verbally, either."

She finishes dressing and puts the top back on, her dog tags clinging to her skin as if she'd never gone for a swim at all. Fluffing her hair with her fingers, she walks out on the back porch and then down the solid stone steps to check her sundial- but by the time she reaches it the brutal sun finally slips behind the highest treetops around the house, at long last offering them a reprieve from the heat.

TBC...


	3. Twilight

A big thanks for my reviewers! I restored a few lines in the first chapter that clarify what they were doing before they got lost. I will continue to post a new chapter every Friday until it's done.

* * *

In this chapter, things get moving back on earth, feelings start to resurface, and Jack's thinks they're on one long, fun camping trip until he reminds himself that they're really _not_.

Thank you very much for reading, and please leave a review if you can- this is my first foray into h/c writing.

* * *

**Twilight**

"A neutron star pair?" McKay looks up at the video link and repeats Dr. Lee's own words back to him."That could do it!" Lee, the chief scientist at the prospective mine site, finishes giving McKay the data he'd collected on the star and then signs off. Turning to the anxiously eavesdropping group behind him, McKay asserts, "It's a gravitational wave coming off a spinning pair of stars- that's why it fluctuates. It distorts space and moves the event horizon for a fraction of a second at a time."

"Explain." Teal'c requests- or rather demands- of the easily excitable scientist who is his polar opposite in personality, a fact that is starting to perturb even him.

"Well, if you took, say, a sheet or …the back of Dr. Jackson jacket," Rodney turns the slightly surprised archeologist around and lifts the hem of his coat until it's parallel with the floor, "a wormhole dents space-time." He sticks his finger right in the middle of the jacket. "And a gravity wave will distort space-time as well, pulling it toward the source as the waves passes through." He slides his fingertip back and forth across the cloth while Daniel tries to see, which causes several ripples in space.

"I thought it was like a wormhole through an apple." Daniel shrugs the fabric of the cosmos onto his back where it belongs.

"I hate that model! It's terrible. No wonder you thought the wormhole went _through_ things."

"She was trying to keep it simple for us." Hammond says, cocking his head slightly.

"Oh-, yes." McKay backtracks awkwardly, "It _is_ the classic description. But that stargate is completely unsafe, General. The event horizon can move."

Hammond looks grim. "Why didn't we notice it?"

McKay shakes his head. "You'd need a LIGO, and they're a half-mile long."

"That's one hell of a toy," the general muses.

"Not LEGO, LIGO- Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory."

"Like I said, one hell of a toy." Hammond turns to Walter, who's busy shutting down the comm. line to the planet. "Order the _Prometheus_ to evacuate P3X-812, and lock that gate out of the dialing program. Until we get more ships, there's not going to be a mine there." He leads the small group up the stairs. "Tell me, McKay, are we any closer to finding Carter and O'Neill?"

"No. But at least we know where to focus our efforts, General." They enter the briefing room and McKay proceeds directly to the star chart. "They're likely at some planet between P3X-812 and the neutron star." He traces a path with his hand.

"That's still a dozen gates, some of which we've never explored." Daniel estimates.

"General Hammond will adjust the mission list," Teal'c states firmly, and turns to the general, adding, "will you not?"

"I will, Teal'c. But there won't _be_ any missions unless I know those gates are safe."

Teal'c stares impassively at General Hammond, but the atmosphere in the room is suddenly tense and brittle.

Daniel inches up, placing his hand on the alien's muscled shoulder. "He's right, Teal'c. We don't know why they didn't just turn around and dial home. But we can send probes through to find out, right, General Hammond?"

"Absolutely. We'll start with MALPs and UAVs and go from there. Dr. McKay, you're good with machines. I'm putting you in charge of the search and rescue."

"This is just the kind of mission I like, General." Rodney smiles confidently, "Conducted from behind a base computer."

--

The world comes alive when twilight falls, as if the animals only exist in the shadows that follow just behind the sun. The cooler temperatures and softer light diminish the sense of danger and frustration as well, and in those first moments after sunset the last two people on the planet call a truce without speaking a word.

Jack tries his luck at hunting and on the first day brings back a small deer-like creature, hefting it onto the stout wooden kitchen table. "Let me know when supper's ready," he tosses back at her with a smirk as he turns to wash his sticky hands. Sam gives him an indignant look and before she can protest his chauvinistic assumptions he cuts her off. "Uh uh," he raises a finger in warning, "I killed it, you cook it. If you don't want to pull mess duty, you'd better get over your aversion to shooting Bambi." Then he steps out the back door and sits down to clean the weapon, leaving her standing in the kitchen with an expression of slightly annoyed amusement.

As it grows darker she often watches him build up the woodpile while she edits her notes in the waning light, having been forced to give up the computer due to a lack of power. "You like this whole living-off-the-land thing, don't you?"

He looks at her with a genuine grin. "Yeah, I do. Don't be surprised if those notes are accidentally trashed by a flying chunk of wood the next time you go inside."

He's not sure if he's just teasing her.

A few days later Sam is lying out on the back porch with the rudimentary star chart in front of her, taking advantage of the steady glow on the horizon. She sighs in frustration, and then drops the stubby pencil carefully on the map before rolling flat on her back to stare at the pink sky, scanning it for the first hint of starlight.

"Shouldn't you be working?" Jack teases her gently, knowing full well she does it endlessly, having slipped the chart out from under her head more than once before covering her up with a jacket and falling asleep beside her. They've forgotten about taking shifts and standing watch.

Sam smiles and keeps scanning the sky. "I am."

"Oh, I forgot. Physicists don't daydream. They _think._" Something lands with a thud not too far from her head, causing her to roll over for a better look. Jack has definitely found something of interest- a small metal drum.

"Is that your still?"

He shakes his head and sits down beside her. "I'm not making the hard stuff, but even if I was, I wouldn't use this." He removes a wooden plug from the cask and she sits up, the unmistakable smell of fossil fuel wafting up as she tips the drum to peer in.

"Carter," he says wistfully, "whenever I smell petroleum products, I'm reminded of you."

She shoves him playfully, which surprises but doesn't bother him in the least, and then she takes the plug out of his hand and taps it back onto the canister. "Where there's oil, there's an engine."

"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it's for the lamps. But that's still good, don't ya think?"

She searches his earnest expression thoughtfully. "It's great, sir. I can work on these problems all winter long now."

Jack suddenly realizes that her gratitude isn't just for the promise of better lighting, and for once he has absolutely no guilt over how damned good that makes him feel. "Hmm," he says, in mock seriousness, "It _sounded_ like a good idea at the time."

"I'll pace myself. I promise."

"You're completely incapable of pacing yourself."

"All right then. You help me." She tosses the calculator in his lap.

He stops smiling and stares at her. "Me? I agreed to help with the looking part, but I'm not doing the figuring-out part."

"Ah- you said you're 'not'- you didn't say you 'couldn't'. All I'm doing is simple triangulations between stars."

"I forgot my trig.," he offers lamely.

"That," she points at the calculator, "will do it for you. You just have to remember what corner you're in."

"The one _you_ backed me into," he grumbles. But he resigns himself to her tutoring and they lie on their elbows for the next hour, plotting distances and angles hoping that once the stars come out, they'll be able to figure out their place in the universe. In spite of himself, Jack is starting to feel as if he already has.

After a few sessions, Sam sits looking over his work while he plays with the calculator. "These are good, sir." She glances over at him and notices he's spelled "ShELL OIL" upside down and backwards.

He sees her interest and quickly erases it. "It's not a labor of love, I can tell you that."

"Okay then, don't help me anymore." She folds up the charts and graphs along well-worn lines.

"Really?" He tries too late to hide his excitement and then finds he doesn't need to when he sees the entertained expression on her face. It's all a little too suspicious. "You could have done five times the work I did with the effort you wasted on me."

"Maybe." She moves her head just enough so that can't see her face very well in the low light. Jack sits up as she puts away the last of her things.

"You didn't need the help, did you?"

She doesn't look up, but her happy demeanor fades. "No, sir. But you needed to learn."

"Carter…" he touches her chin, turning her face toward the last rays of the sun, but before he can see what's going on behind those baby blues she abruptly picks up his homework and gets to her feet.

"You taught me a lot, sir. Now I'm teaching you. Just in case." Then she turns and disappears into the shadows of the house.

Jack sighs, filled with guilt over his relative lack of worry about getting back. He doesn't dwell on things he can't affect; and at times he feels like he's at his cabin only without the fate of the world to worry about. He lies back down on the porch and for a change tries appreciating the sky for its awesome beauty instead of just scanning it for the points of a scalene triangle.

Like that little bright point just over the roof of the house next door.

He finds that she's already asleep, the glow from the horizon seeping in through the open window, washing over her in tints of pink and gold. Well, he thinks, the star will still be there when she wakes up and by itself it's useless- so he just watches her from the doorway to her room and imagines what it would be like to be in her bed, his fingers tangled in that yellow hair, those long limbs wrapped around him.

--

"Jack, come here! You've got to see this!" her excited voice comes to him as he puts away the last of the few rough utensils they had used for breakfast. His astonishment at her use of his given name helps him to keep a straight face as he walks through the kitchen and onto the porch.

"Carter, that's still 'sir' to you."

"Okay," she says distractedly, staring up at the lavender sky. "There they are!" Three stars are visible now.

"Well, it's about damn time," he grins. He decides it was definitely worth it to keep his mouth shut. "Now what?"

"Well, I can't run a doppler or check light echoes on them and find out far away they are, so all we can do is take measurements and hope some day we recognize a star, or pattern- or something that fits the calculations I made from _Starry Night_." Her enthusiasm at what she can do with a few stars and a calculator causes his small grin to widen into a full-fledged smile. Her eyes spark back at him and for a second she almost flings her arms around him in a paroxysm of unrestrained scientific joy, but then she just hugs her own arms self-consciously.

He's used to 'almosts' with Carter- she almost died, they almost kissed, she almost told him how she felt. This time, though, there's no sadness in her eyes, no remorse. There's just the awkwardness of being caught with her guard down and her feelings showing and she's a little embarrassed just like she used to be before they realized that it was, quite literally, a crime to feel that way.

It's the best 'almost' hug he's ever had. And he's so happy about it that he actually asks Carter a scientific question. "So you're going to measure these with… what?"

"I can make a protractor." She's still smiling and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, it's not just about the stars.

"Of _course_ you can."

"You of all people ought to be glad I'm such a geek. Sir."

"Oh, I _am_. Ever since the day you made the earth move for me." She looks a little surprised and Jack wonders again why there is no airlock between his brain and his mouth. He quickly explains, "In Antarctica. That thing you did with the DHD." But her smile hasn't faded and now it's his turn to be embarrassed. "Um, Carter," he says, motioning vaguely toward the forest, "I think I'm going to go kill something."

--

With a rare few minutes of time on his hands, General Hammond sequesters himself in O'Neill's office in order to sift through the debris pile on the desk. He hears a light tap on the doorjamb and looks up to find a petite, redheaded woman whom he's never met standing in the doorway. "Yes?"

"General Hammond. I'm Kerry Johnson, the new CIA analyst."

George smiles. "Of course. I'm sorry we haven't met yet. I've been as slow as molasses in January as far as meeting the new folks. Please come in."

"Oh, it's fine sir. I know you're- busy." Kerry walks hesitantly into the room.

"Yes." George nods grimly. "What can I do for you, Ms. Johnson?"

"Do you have news on General O'Neill and Lt. Colonel Carter?"

"No, ma'am. I'm afraid I don't. Is it something I can help you with?"

Kerry shakes her head "No, sir. I just wanted to know. It's… personal."

General Hammond sets his papers down and looks kindly at the nervous young woman. "I didn't know, Ms. Johnson. I'm sorry."

"No one knows." Kerry sighs.

"I'm sure he'll be back." They both know that is nothing but a polite reassurance.

"How long since they've been missing, General?"

"Four weeks."

"And they're together?"

"We have no reason to think otherwise. And that's a good thing. "

"Right." she nods in agreement. "It certainly is." After a brief pause, she straightens her shoulders and lifts her eyes, "Thanks for your time, General." He watches her go, and knows that they're both concerned about the same thing. And oddly enough, he's okay with it, because it means his officers are more likely to live if they're doing it for each other.

--

The creature slams into O'Neill's shoulder like the end of a staff weapon shoved by a big Jaffa, knocking Jack face-first into the underbrush, his hands curling around his automatic instead of protecting his head. It's heavy and he finds he needs every inch between his body and the ground to maneuver around and get the barrel up against its heaving, growling body armed with teeth and claws that have his right side in a crushing grip. Hoping he isn't about to shoot any part of himself, he pulls hard on the trigger and blasts the animal back with a half-dozen rounds.

The shots ring like an alarm through the silent forest, and Sam drops the papers from her hand at the sound. There are too many shots, too fast. Stumbling on her way back into the dark house, she grabs her radio off the table. "General? I heard shots." She takes her thumb off the button and waits.

He's still on his back when her call comes, his hand trying to stem the bleeding from his shoulder wound, not sure if the thing is coming back. He hopes the radio doesn't draw its attention back to him, but he hears nothing except the rasping of his own breath. Finding that his right arm isn't working so well, Jack moves his left hand to work the radio, his bloody fingers slipping off the controls. Her voice comes again, clear but a little too controlled. "Hold on," he mutters, wiping his hand on his shirt, his eyes finding the enormous cat-like predator lying a few yards away, still breathing, its orange eyes open but vacant. He manages to operate the radio. "Carter."

"Are you all right?"

"Not really."

"Dammit!" Sam blurts, and then realizing her thumb is still pressing the transmission button, adds, "Sir."

Jack grins, more of a grimace than a smile as the pain sweeps the amusement off of his face. "Due east, Colonel. There're a couple of rocks about the size of- an ambulance."

Taking the hint, she reaches up and grimly pulls the first aid kit off of the shelf over the counter. "What is it?"

"Dead." He shuts his eyes and lies back. "But don't forget your P-90."

She finds him a few minutes later, the carcass of the dead animal flagging his location. His eyes are still closed and he's not moving, curled up in the deep gloom of the forest floor. She drops to her knees beside him, touching his face, because it's all she can see that's not covered in blood. "Sir?"

"Ah, Sam," he whispers.

Her eyes close briefly at the sound of his voice, and then she gets to work, first rolling up her jacket to place under his head.

"The goa'uld _never_ allow competition," he grunts through gritted teeth, the flexing of his neck muscles almost too much to bear. "What the fuck is this thing doing here?"

"I don't know, sir," Sam's breath catches as she moves his hand aside. The wound is long, ragged and deep, and by the looks of his shirt, he's already lost a lot of blood. Moving quickly, she sprinkles the gash with quikclot and then packs it with gauze. She tears the sleeve of his shirt the rest of the way off, using it to tie the dressing tight, wincing when he winces.

He's pale and his breathing is shallower as she turns her attention to the wrist distal to the jagged wound. There's a pulse there but it's so fast she doesn't even bother to count it with her watch. He needs fluids _right now_, but there's no medevac team coming, no surgeon to patch him up, not even an IV of normal saline. She makes him drink two full canteens and then manages to half-carry, half-drag him back to the village despite his twisted ankle. Sam pushes his sleeping platform in front of the fire and hauls him onto it, and then stitches the wounds as best she can, finishing by handing him a cup of water and two of their precious few antibiotic tablets.

"I don't need those." He's chilled to the bone despite the blankets and roaring fire, and all he wants to do now is sleep. At least it doesn't hurt anymore and he should be glad about that except that he's felt this way before. And this time there's no sarcophagus.

"No," she says firmly, the tightness of her jaw and her tone making it clear she's not just referring to the pills. Sam presses them into his palm, and he can feel her hands trembling. "I'll dissolve it in your water if I have to."

He closes her fingers over the drugs. "Sam. It's not gonna make any difference. Save 'em." The room starts to fade out and he closes his eyes, but mostly he does it because he doesn't want to see her face.

She bends down and whispers into his ear, "I'll throw them in the fire, then. So cut your losses, General." She rests her cheek on his and waits, their hands intertwined, while he decides what he wants to do. "Please, Jack."

It works every time. He almost resents how she always manages to make him want to live.

She supports Jack as he struggles to lift his head, and he chokes down the capsules with water from a cup she holds for him. He's never felt this weak- so completely and utterly drained. But he forces his eyes open one last time to find her watching him intently with a look of worry so deep that he finally understands he needs to get his shit together and pull through because he can't bear the thought of leaving her alone on this planet. He wishes there were more blood getting to his brain, because the only thing he can think of to tell her is, "Thanks."

Sam turns her face away as she straightens the blankets around his injured foot, as if there are points for neatness. "Don't thank me yet, sir." She slips down to rest wearily on the floor and crosses her arms on the bed, resting her head on them as she watches the fire and the rise and fall of his chest until he's asleep. Then she carefully stands and picks up the pieces of his mangled shirt, shaking her head with a pained expression as she turns it over in her hands.

The shirt is in obvious need of a good washing before she makes any attempt at repairing it, so she moves quietly into the kitchen and tosses in the sink. Swirling the garment through the water, she watches with horror as the basin fills with blood, black in the dim light. Any experienced combatant knows very well what a little blood can do to a lot of water, but that doesn't stop her from taking a step back, gazing wide-eyed from the dark pool to where Jack is lying.

He moves one leg a little and her shoulders relax as her breathing calms down. She watches him a moment longer, and then her actions become more deliberate and sure as she steps up to the basin and washes the shirt again, going outside to hang it up to dry. But snowflakes swirl in through the open door and she chooses instead to shut and latch the door against the darkness.


	4. Midnight

By the end of this chapter, I was thinking, "Jack! Hurry up!" Then I realized I was the one who wrote it.

* * *

** Midnight**

"Sir, wake up." He swears she's petting his head, running her hand across his hair, and God, Jack thinks, that feels _nice_. "You've been asleep a long time."

He's uncertain what Carter means by "a long time"- in his world time can dilate, shift, and loop- but he's sure that he doesn't want to wake up since that hurts and sleeping doesn't. "Uh huh," he says without opening his eyes, proving that he's alive and somewhat coherent, hoping that will be good enough for her to keep doing what she's doing.

But it isn't. She sits back on her heels with a little sigh, and that's enough to prod him into trying harder. He opens his eyes finally and stares at the fire while he gathers his strength, then struggles to sit up. But the pain, stiffness and blood loss converge on him like a tidal wave and the world abruptly disappears again.

The next time he surfaces he knows something's gone wrong because the scratches on his face are bleeding again and they hurt worse than they should. He really must have hit the bed hard. And then hears her voice and the anguish in it puts everything into context. "Jack. Don't. Not again." He slowly opens his eyes again and finding his head now cradled in her lap, reaches up and wipes the tears from her face before they fall on his, tears shed not for a fellow soldier or for fear of survival- but just for him.

He's too sick to think anymore, and so he can't rationalize or deny what he sees or what he feels, what he knows has been there all along. He can't pretend to understand it, either- he never has. She deserves so much more. But in that moment of semiconsciousness, with thoughts and dreams and feelings swirling into one confused storm in his head he finally understands that what she _needs_ is him. And the shock of it causes him to close his eyes again as his hand slips up around the back of her neck and he pulls her head down to his.

In a few minutes the faintness has passed. "I'm all right," he says softly. "Just a couple quarts low." She nods, her flaxen hair soft against his cheek, but her breaths are still forced and fast against his neck. He's never seen her cry like this before, and it's still a few minutes before she's calm enough to raise her head and meet his eyes. "Hey," he whispers, his gaze caressing her heartbreakingly beautiful face, "that's enough of that." He's not ready to call what's left of her bluff or to tell her what he needs to say, because they're both too weak for that right now. But there will be time for that. Lots of time.

He's relieved to see her tears replaced by a weak smile and then she turns and she's out of his field of vision. An exotic but familiar aroma replaces the lingering animal smell that still seems to cling to his clothing. "Is that _coffee_?" he asks incredulously.

"I was saving it for a special occasion," she says. He guesses that not dying is pretty special, and takes the cup with his good hand and tilts his head up just enough to drink it, savoring the smell and taste as if it's a fine vintage wine instead of instant Folgers.

"Come on, sir, all of it. Maybe it'll raise your blood pressure." As if having his head in her lap isn't already raising his blood pressure enough.

"Carter, you can't expect me to pound this. Let me enjoy it."

She scoots in a bit closer to support him and he tries to sit up a little more, but a jolt of pain pushes him back down against her shoulder. "Crap." His breathing is shallow and fast and it hurts to do even that.

She takes the coffee from his hand. "Let me give you some pain pills, sir."

"Nah. Just give me a minute." He closes his eyes and feels her move, then the dry, smooth texture of two tablets against his lips as she feeds them to him one by one. She's persistent, he has to give her that. She brings the coffee to his mouth and steadies it as he tips it. "Okay," he says after he's done taking a long, sweet swallow. But she doesn't move the cup, and he dutifully finishes it before she sets it down and brings her arms back up around him again. Neither one of them speak as she holds him and Jack finds himself not really giving a damn if her behavior is inappropriate for a subordinate or a woman engaged to be married to someone else. After enough time goes by for the pills to have kicked in, she eases out from under him and heads for the kitchen. His voice stops her. "Don't be gone too long."

Sam swallows hard. "There's a blizzard outside. We're kind of stuck with each other now."

In a short while she's back, stoking the fire after handing him another cup of coffee. It 's easier for him this time thanks to the pills, but she only has a little while to give his injuries a good once-over before the pain returns. He's more or less sitting upright as she peels away the dressing from the day before, and she tells him that she thinks it looks about as good as it can. She cautiously cleans the wound and he flinches. "Sorry, sir. Not all of it would go back together again."

"Colonel. Just do what you have to do." She doesn't reply and he regrets his brusque tone since she's doing a great job and he's a lousy patient. With a final press of adhesive tape, she lies him gently back down. "Sorry, Carter," he says penitently.

"It's not your fault, sir." She puts the first aid kit back together, and then turns to get a plate of food from where it's keeping warm by the fire. "I even told you that hunting didn't seem fair because the animals are almost tame. We thought there were no predators."

"Except for Fluffy." He manages to hold the plate and spare himself the indignity of having her feed him. She scoots down to the foot of the bed to examine his injured ankle, carefully pulling off his socks one by one. "You're brave," he observes wryly.

"Your feet are the only part of you that _are_ clean, sir. I'm going to need those pants, too."

"They're not that bad." He's being defensive because he hates being fussed over, even if it's for a good reason.

"What's the matter, General," she teases, trying to make light of the situation. "Afraid I'll notice you're a man?"

"Actually," he says, surveying the battered and scarred body that had taken decades of abuse, "I'm more afraid that you won't."

She looks up with an enigmatic little smile. "I don't think you need to worry about that, sir."

With a doubtful sigh, he defies the pain and stiffness in his right arm long enough to unfasten his belt and pants. He'd be happy to let her unzip him in a fit of passion, but he'd have to be near death to tolerate her doing it because he's weak. After she helps him struggle out of the stiff and bloody BDUs, Jack lies back completely drained, his hearth thudding desperately, every part of him somewhere on a scale from aching to excruciating. He shuts his eyes and waits for the agony to subside.

Without a word she presses a warm, wet cloth to his forehead, gently wiping the grime from the scratches that he knows must be covered in a very attractive layer of blood, sweat and dirt. Every so often she stops and he hears the gentle sound of water dripping into a nearby basin, and then she starts again, eventually moving down his neck. The tension in his body slips away and the spasms in his injured muscles start to dissipate with every light stroke of her hand.

It had been close. Very close. The animal was aiming for his throat and had nearly hit its intended target. Working over to the neatly dressed wound, she starts again with his hands, eventually going over every part of him except what he refuses to undress because he is sure that the cat did _not_ bite his ass. When she's finally satisfied, she pulls the blanket up over his quiet form and kisses the old scar that crosses his eyebrow. Finally succumbing to the sleep she's denied herself for more than a day, she settles down beside him.

Relaxed but not asleep, Jack watches her face as unconsciousness finally erases the worry lines that crease her forehead and he's filled with the sense that after all these years of wanting to touch her, she had ended up making love to him first.

--

The first snow isn't deep and it's easy for Sam to keep a clear path to the workshop and cellar, all the while keeping an eye on Jack. She finally seems to accept the fact that he needs to sleep most of the time and that frees her up to stargaze. Despite his earlier aura of relaxation, he'd obviously worked very hard and there is more of everything than they're going to need, if her estimate of eight weeks of winter is correct. Her calculations also indicate they're either close to the equator or there's no tilt in the planet's axis which is good because if there were seasons on top of the days they probably wouldn't survive.

She's washing a crude iron pot in the workshop basin when the door opens and Jack is pushed in by a blast of frosty air.

"General! What are you doing over here?" She quickly shuts the door behind him.

"I smelled something burning and thought I'd better check on you." He never knows what she's going to be up to when his back is turned.

She smiles with satisfaction and nods toward the counter. "I made soap."

"Really?" He's always very impressed with anything that's practical.

"Better living through chemistry," she asserts happily.

His eyes narrow. "Don't even think about tinkering with my beer, Carter." He glances over to the table and reassures himself that everything is just where he left it.

"Now you know how I feel, sir," she says pointedly.

He shrugs sheepishly and they settle down on a rough, low bench by the fire. "It's really coming down out there."

"Oh," she says dejectedly. "I hope it doesn't keep it up."

"I doubt it'll snow all night- winter- whatever." Jack reaches across her and grabs a section of wood. "By the way, do we have enough of this to keep using it over here?"

"You split enough timber to build an ark, sir."

He smiles and tosses the log on the fire. Oh, if she _only_ knew why there's so much wood piled off the back porch all the way up to the eaves. He chopped the last cord after catching her up at 0500 wearing nothing but a t-shirt and some tiny little thing that was supposed to pass for panties. _Damn. _Truthfully, he whipped the whole place into shape partly to keep from acting on his disturbingly vivid thoughts of holding her, in varying degrees of undress, against the nearest flat surface and making her scream his name.

"Sir?"

Not much of a scream, he thinks, hell- not even his _name. _He sighs, admitting to himself that lust is the least of his problems, after all there's more than one way to handle that. But the longer they avoid talking about that unspoken near-death confession, the less likely they are to ever address it- just like every other unspoken confession that they've had.

It's such a complicated mess that some days he wants to break something with his bare hands out of sheer frustration, and that feeling started well before they ever got here. He wants her at the SGC but he wants her for his own, he's got too many dark secrets but only she understands, he'll ruin her career but he can't give up his, she's getting married and he's seeing Kerry, they might have to live here or they might have to die here- and on and on and on. He's pulled in so many directions he can't move in _any _direction.

And none of that matters at all, because she could cut right through all the ties that immobilize him only she doesn't even know she holds the knife.

"General, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he nods, and says nothing more. O'Neill, he thinks, you are _such _a piece of work.

They settle down into silence until the fire burns down and there's nothing left but coals. Reluctantly, they leave the hearth and walk as quickly as possible over to the main building, finally running up the stairs and flinging the door shut to keep out the cold, Sam laughing with her hands on her bright red cheeks, the snowflakes turning to dew on her skin. "Wow! It's _really_ cold out there!"

He resists the urge to kiss the droplets off of her eyelashes, her face, her hair and any other part where the snowflakes might or might not have fallen. He just smiles and runs his hand through his own wet hair, and she laughs again. "You really need a haircut, sir. It looks like magnetized steel filings." Her eyes are sparkling and he wonders how insubordination could be so damned _cute._

--

Sam lies in her sleeping bag looking up at the stars, the only thing between her and sure hypothermia being a millimeter or so of space blanket. Every now and then she takes her hands out, looks at the notebook, then puts them back again. The sky has cleared and right now it's one giant Rorschach test and she's just waiting for the image to snap into focus. The image that can lead them home.

It's tough going, though, with the snow and cold and constant interruptions from her CO.

"Carter, did I ever tell you how crazy you are?"

"About every half-hour, sir."

"Well, I'm promoting you from 'crazy' to 'stark raving mad,' retroactive to 0800." He's shivering with his hands tucked beneath his crossed arms because they had no winter gear with them when they left the SGC. And he's also getting a little irritated because now he has to add his shoulder to the list of things that hurt when it's too damned cold outside. It never occurs to him that the solution would be to stay _inside_.

"Thank you. Any perks with that?" Pitch black clouds edge across the moonless sky and soon her window of opportunity will be gone.

"The budget's tight," he muses, "but I think I can manage a straightjacket." Startled, her vision switches to him too late, as he stoops down and swiftly tightens the cord around the opening of the sleeping bag with a smirk. Having completely restrained her, he picks her up- bag, space blanket and all."Time for a break, Carter."

"Sir!" There's not a thing that she can do.

It's easier than it should have been, even with his sore shoulder, and his smugness is abruptly replaced by a sudden, sick feeling- like the one that he felt when he'd found her missing six weeks earlier. This particular garden of Eden they're in is full of all kinds of snakes, some of them more sneaky than others.

"This isn't funny," she sputters, managing to loosen the cord after he sets her down gently in the common room. She throws her notebook out and unzips the bag, then climbs up on the bench to kick her feet free.

"No, it isn't. When's the last time you ate anything?" He realizes now that there is actual survival value in his wanting to see her naked.

She shrugs. "When you did." He doesn't reply and she sighs. "I'm not a great cook."

"You don't have much to work with, but that's beside the point." He straddles the bench where she's sitting and he knows he's making her uncomfortable with his close proximity and attention, but it's his duty to watch out for the welfare of those under his command. And then he picks up both of her hands and knows he's not fooling anybody.

"Sam, you're smart. But you don't have to figure it out all in one day." Her hands are pale, delicate and cold like a porcelain doll's as he encloses them in his strong, warm grasp. "It's easy to get sick here. You said so yourself." He thinks he might have to pull rank and order her to drink his home brew whether she likes it or not. It might help cure a couple of things that appear to wrong with her at the moment.

"Aren't you the one who says the smartest person is the one who knows that he doesn't know squat?" She's still frustrated and angry and Jack's not really sure why but he chalks it up as one more reason for a big mug of beer.

"I would _never_ say such a thing," he states.

"Why not?"

"Because 'doesn't know squat' is a double negative."

She presses her lips together and tries not to smile but she's always been a sucker for his jokes, though sometimes he suspects she's laughing _at_ him. For a few seconds, she looks like she's going to be all right, and then worry turns her blue eyes gray. She sighs and looks down at their hands, as if the solution to the problem could be there. "Time is running out, and I don't know the answer."

He's puzzled by her statement and the depth of her emotion. "We're _fine_," he asserts, feeling her hands start to thaw. "We're just going to stay holed up here all winter. The only thing we've got to worry about is driving each other crazy."

Finally she smiles, but her eyes retain a weary look. "All right," she sighs. "I think I'll turn in, sir."

Jack realizes she thinks he doesn't needs her with him all night anymore. But she's wrong. "It's like a fridge back there."

"Maybe." She gets to her feet and stretches. "Goodnight, sir."

"Well, when you get tired of freezing your ass, you can come out here. I don't snore."

"Much." She says with a smile. He huffs in mock indignation and turns to roll out his sleeping bag while she retires to the back room.

A few hours later he wakes up to find the warm, quiet shape that is Lt. Colonel Carter curled up against his back. Jack doesn't move, preferring to stay right where he is a moment longer since the room was pretty cold and Carter definitely wasn't. He carefully eases onto his back and she burrows in closer, leaving nowhere for his arm to go except around her.

She stirs again and a muffled voice rises from the general vicinity of his left side. "G'morning, sir."

"Morning, Carter."

"It's cold." It's as good an excuse as any, though they both know why she's there. She can't stay away any more.

"The fire went out."

"Oh. I'll get it."

"That wasn't a request, it was a statement." His arm tightens around her slightly, communicating that she doesn't have to get up. She makes no attempt to move from his side. Her hair tickles his face and he sweeps it away with his free hand.

"Sorry sir. I needed a haircut the day we left. I wish I could do something about it."

"I don't." he admits, then hurriedly adds, "It suits you."

He can hear a smile in her voice. "You wouldn't say that if you could see me right now." She's lifted her head and he'd be able to see her eyes shining back at him if there'd been any light, but there is no light, just the enveloping, intimate darkness. He lets his hand slip down the side of her face, fingers tracing until he can orient himself in the dark.

"I wouldn't mind that," he caresses her cheek with his thumb. "Seeing you right now." Then he sits up, kisses her gently on her forehead, and gets up to relight the fire.

Sam stays curled up in the nest of sleeping bags and blankets and watches him, her eyes wide in shock from the tenderness of that single, swift moment.

"Warmer?" he finally says, once the fire had taken hold. She nods. He checks his watch. "Go on back to sleep, Carter."

"I thought that on the list of things to worry about, following orders is pretty low. Way below things like, oh- _talking_ to you." Sam says quietly.

"You've got a mind like a steel elephant."

She smiles but doesn't appear to be distracted by scrambled similies.

Jack knows there's no way out this time. There's nowhere for either one of them to hide, nothing to come between them, no planet to save. They can't even open the door to go outside. He stays standing, with one arm on the mantelpiece, because he needs the distance. It's the only defense he's got left. "Nothing's changed."

He watches the profile of her face, the light dancing across her features, and her eyes don't follow the flames as she stares through them lost in thoughts he'd pay a hell of a lot more than a penny for. She nods in agreement. "Things are just like they were. Like they've always been."

He can barely breathe. His grip on the mantel tightens as her words sink into his soul. But it can't be this simple, because nothing ever is.

"You sure about that, Carter?" He doesn't want to come right out and say she's engaged to someone else but he's pretty sure it hasn't slipped her mind.

"He's not you. It's always been just a matter of time."

"Maybe it's just a matter of space."

Sam shakes her head and turns to look directly into his eyes, her face flushed from the heat of the fireplace and her own emotions. "This little… pressure cooker," she waves her hand at the room, "sped up the reaction. It didn't start here. It won't end here."

"Just chemistry then?" He has to make sure she wants this. Because once he opens the door, he can't close it. Not a second time.

She smiles and it's like she's walked right in and taken his heart off of the shelf and every breath, every word, every smile brushes away a little bit more of the dust. "In the end, sir, everything is physics."

It's taken him years, but he thinks he finally gets that.

--

Thirty miles away, the chevrons of the stargate light up one by one.

--TBC


	5. Just Before the Dawn

All right, I know folks are going to be questioning my sanity at the end of this chapter- but let's just say things are not what they might seem to be. The story ain't over until it's over AND I usually save the best for last. Just sayin' ;-)

* * *

**Just Before the Dawn**

_She smiles and it's like she's walked right in and taken his heart off of the shelf and every breath, every word, every smile brushes away a little bit more of the dust. "In the end, sir, everything is physics."_

_It's taken him years, but he thinks he finally gets that._

--

_Thirty miles away, the chevrons of the stargate light up one by one._

_--  
_

Daniel scrutinizes the transmission from the MALP again. "McKay, can you magnify that bit?" He taps an area just to the right of center.

Teal'c and General Hammond stand behind the two scientists, a quartet of intense quiet concentration in the otherwise busy control room. The recording from the MALP is hard to read, the camera obscured by snow so heavy that they hadn't even tried to send in a UAV.

"This is the last planet with a known gate between P3X-812 and the neutron star." McKay announces, although everyone already knows that.

"We've never been there before, have we?" Daniel asks.

"No, Dr. Jackson." General Hammond affirms. "It was on the routine recon list but it's always been dark, and we won't send in routine missions in the dark since that…"

"I know." Daniel cuts George off before he can finish.

"Am I missing something?" McKay asked impatiently, his eyes not leaving the screen. Something catches his eye, but it could just be the snow.

"Daniel Jackson does not wish to be reminded that he was once soundly defeated by O'Neill in a battle over Colonel Carter." Teal'c explains.

"Battle? Carter?" McKay's eyes are still on the computer.

"We were- not ourselves." Daniel slumps down on a stool and glares at Teal'c.

"I disagree, Dr. Jackson. Perhaps it was a rare opportunity for O'Neill to truly be himself."

"O'Neill," McKay mutters under his breath. "That lucky bastard." He stares vacantly at the keyboard, and then abruptly turns on his chair. "Hey- isn't she supposed to be..." he starts but then a raised eyebrow from Teal'c stops him cold. Turning back to the friendlier face of a computer screen, he muses, "Maybe they don't want to be found." He hits one more key and the area in question is magnified.

"Maybe they do." Daniel says, getting to his feet.

"Well, I'll be." Hammond can't contain his grin.

Teal'c would recognize a Power Bar wrapper anywhere in the universe.

--

Initially, Jack doesn't move from the fireplace. He knows that whatever he does next won't be quite right, but it won't be totally wrong, either. The important thing is that he actually _does_ something, for a change. So he sits beside her and starts with something safe, the one thing they've relied on all these years to get them through, the only thing that could tell her he had never really forgotten no matter what he acted like the rest of the time. "C'mere," he says, slipping his arm around her shoulders. It's like he's pulled a trigger because in a moment her arm is around his neck and her face is against his shoulder and the relief he feels inside is so intense it takes his breath away.

The only sound is the cracking and popping of the logs in the fireplace and Jack is content just to hold her for however long she wants him to. She's looking at the fire again and her voice is so soft and slow he wonders if she knows she's speaking out loud. "Do you remember," she pauses slightly, "standing in the open cargo bay door with a parachute on your back for the very first time?"

He nods and smiles, knowing she picked out this metaphor just for him.

"That's how I feel now. It's going to be the biggest thrill of my life or it's going to break me into little tiny pieces. And I'm not sure what to do."

Jack tips his head until his lips are just above the curve of her ear.

"Jump," he whispers.

--

Daniel and Teal'c turn from the computer and make for the stairs when General Hammond's voice stops them in their tracks. "You can't gate to that planet. Heaven knows where you two will end up."

"Oh come on, General! We're so close- they're _right_ _there._" Daniel gestures at the computer screen in frustration, five-point-seven light years away having no real meaning to him. Not that it ever did.

Teal'c looks at his friend, then back at General Hammond. "I will go- alone."

"I can't let you do that, Teal'c." Hammond says firmly, the same way he's said it at least a dozen times before. He shakes his head and turns to stare out at the gate.

"Even if you _do_ make it, how are you going to get back?" McKay types a few commands rapidly into the computer, and turns the monitor to face his anxious colleagues. "Look at this gate- these symbols. It's no wonder we haven't heard from them."

Daniel stares intensely at the screen and then closes his eyes in utter dismay. "I don't recognize any of that," he says.

"Nor do I," Teal'c adds gravely.

General Hammond is still contemplating the gate when a small grin starts working at the edges of his mouth. "Gentlemen, I believe we can do this the old-fashioned way." He looks down at Walter. "Sergeant, where is the _Prometheus_?"

Walter, who has been quietly eavesdropping throughout the entire conversation, already has the data on the screen. "Less than a day out from P3X-124…" he stumbles, "…uh- that planet. They're coming back with the evacuees from P3X-812." Quite a few other eavesdropping personnel can be heard high-fiving and slapping each other on the back even as he speaks.

"There you go, guys," McKay says confidently. "What difference can one day make?"

-------------------------------------------------

In the end Jack doesn't make her scream his name- she lets it go on a tortured sigh that comes from somewhere deep. He thinks it's the most breathtakingly beautiful aria he's ever heard, right before the soft, insistent rhythms of her body tear away his ability to think or hear anything at all. And afterwards he won't release her, their hands intertwined, his face buried in her hair, the weight of his body on hers. He knows he's heavy but he just wants to make this moment of contact last, to press into her, soak her up and get her under his skin permanently.

"It's all right," she finally whispers against the hard muscles of his shoulder, "You can let me go."

He moves his head back just enough to see her face. "That's just it. I never could."

He kisses her gently then, almost reverently, loosing her hands so he can sweep her dampened hair back off of her forehead in a gesture so caring and sweet that she has to choke back a sob. "Don't cry," he says softly, moving his lips to catch the first tear that slides across her temple. She closes her eyes and he cradles her face in his hands, kissing her in an attempt to erase the tears, not understanding that every single thing he does only makes it worse. He finally gives up and rolls onto his back, holding her tightly against his broad chest until her slender frame stops shaking and her breaths even out.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispers into the curve of his neck, one hand holding his head to hers. He doesn't know what she has to be sorry for or why she's crying when he's so happy the universe could end and he'd just go to hell with a grin on his face, but he figures he has all the time in the world to find out. And he will find out because he didn't wait all these years to be with her just to screw it up. He could have done _that_ a long time ago, but they both deserve better. So he simply strokes her hair and holds her close, because that's all either one of them really needs right now, until the fire fades and they're asleep.

A few hours later she's lying with her chin on her hands, which are in turn folded on his chest, her view of his eyes changing with his breathing. Jack tries his hardest to leave her to her thoughts, since he's the _last_ person who'd ever ask anyone what they were thinking. But he's seen that look before. Even though his eyes are shut. "What?"

"Aren't I allowed to look at you?"

"You never just _look_ at anything," he smiles, glad to be the center of her attention, anyway. The notebook lies on the kitchen table forgotten and closed for the longest continuous stretch of time since they arrived on the planet, and as far as he's concerned, it can stay that way for a little while longer. "I can hear those nuclear-powered trinium wheels spinning, you know."

She makes a little noise in response and Jack knows he must be totally gone because he thinks her snort of disbelief sounds absolutely charming.

He keeps his eyes closed, letting her sprawl across him to her heart's content because there are definitely worse things in life than being Carter's pillow. His hand is in the back pocket of her BDUs and he thinks he's going to enjoy making sure she puts some weight back on because he's going to have to evaluate her carefully and often considering they don't have a scale. He's just thoughtful like that. The real problem is who's going to fix lunch because both of them have been overtaken by an incredible reluctance to actually get up and do something. Jack's mulling over this profound dilemma when suddenly she has a burst of motivation and sits up.

"I think I'm going to go over to the workshop for a while."

"Why?" Jack can't think of a single reason compelling enough to make him want to go over there right this minute, not even if there was Guinness on tap instead of his sorry excuse for beer.

"You'll see," she says mysteriously, then she gets to her feet. "I'll be back in a few minutes, sir."

He smiles lazily at her and puts his now-cold hands behind his head. "You're gonna have to work on that, Carter."

"So are you, _Jack._"

He doesn't agree, but he'll just let her figure that out eventually. She smiles back and leaves the room but it's not long until she returns.

"Yes?" He hasn't moved a muscle.

"The door."

"Oh." It's more of a groan than an actual word, and he makes himself get up and follow her out into the kitchen.

"If you can just push it open far enough, I'll get out and do the rest." She looks at him impatiently as she pulls his coat on over hers. Jack thinks that by now he ought to know better than to come between her and her stuff, and so he resigns himself to a few minutes of work. He puts his good shoulder up against the door, braces his feet and shoves his entire body weight against the wood a few times until she can slip out. "Thank you. I can get it from here." The snow has drifted high against the door, and everywhere else it looks to be two feet deep and fine as Colorado powder.

"That's a lot of snow to shovel."

"It's okay. It's really light and I don't want to hurt your shoulder."

"You didn't seem all that worried about it a couple of hours ago."

She shuts the door in his face before he can see her blush. Jack just stands there smiling for a few moments before deciding that if she could shovel the entire pathway, he could least fix something to eat.

He's able to put together what appears to be a decent meal without too much trouble, although he suspects it's only because his standards are a little lower than hers. Surveying the room, he decides the atmosphere really isn't too bad even if the food is, with the fire flickering through the wide doorway leading to the common room and the cozy, intimate space. And then, for the first time in weeks, he feels an intense desire to go home to earth because suddenly it seems as if this isn't enough. There's so much he wants to do. With her.

Jack opens the door to find her but is greeted by comprehensive darkness and silence. "Carter!" He steps out into the air and by the feel of it in his nose and lungs he immediately estimates it to be twenty or thirty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. There's no light on in the other house and nothing along the path. He shoves the door back into a snowdrift to hold it open so the light can flood the pathway until it veers off into oblivion, and grabbing the flashlight off the counter he plunges out into the frigid night.

Fear leaps up to clutch and claw at him again as he finds her on the ground just below the porch steps of the workshop. "Sam?" She's limp in his arms but to his great relief Jack finds her carotid pulse and it seems weak though that's probably because his fingers are rapidly losing their feeling. He doesn't see any obvious signs of injury, and he quickly skims the flashlight over the blindingly white snow and across the house, looking for her attacker.

Finding nothing, he sweeps the light higher up, across the black picket of trees and snowy rooftop, and then he sees the eaves.

"Dammit!" It wasn't an alien predator, staff weapon or force field, but something infinitely more mundane. It was just snow off of the roof, a slab of ice knocked loose, probably when she shut the door to leave. Just snow.

"God," he moans forcefully through gritted teeth. It's the closest he's ever going to get to a prayer, and what it lacks in complexity it possesses in sincerity. "Come on, Sam." Jack picks her up off of the frozen ground and gets her into the house before they both freeze to death, kicking the door shut as he enters. Lying her down by the fire, he's almost afraid to look her over. He remembers one winter night as a child when his family was snowed in at the cabin and he was awakened by a crack that he would later compare to a large-caliber weapon. In the morning, the adults had to take down the deck railing where the ice had splintered it to pieces. Jack swallows hard and wonders what it can do to a human being. Ignoring his own convulsive shivering he gently pulls her cap off of her head, and it's frozen bright red on one side. He turns her head and gently parts her blood-matted hair to find a scalp laceration that's no longer bleeding. But Jack knows that doesn't mean much because there's no way to know what's going on inside, and she's so cold. So very cold.

He takes a deep breath and focuses on what he can do, instead of the nearly infinite number of things that he can't. He's removing his icy jacket from her when he notices there is something clenched in her pale hand- a folded piece of paper- a piece of paper she dug through snow in the middle of the frozen night to retrieve.

Jack carefully tucks it away in his back pocket and continues peeling away her clothing when he abruptly gets the strangest feeling that his earlier plea has been answered. There's a feeling of pressure in his ears as brilliant white light suddenly knifes in under the door, around the windows, down the chimney, anywhere a few photons can fit through, pure and silent and vaguely ominous. "What the…"

He never believed in angels before and he still doesn't unless they happen to sound like Reynolds and Lorne and have to pound on the door instead of just floating right on in.

--------------------------------------------

"General O'Neill, sir, you're under observation." The ship's doctor is surprisingly burly and not interested in having his patient defying orders.

"You can observe me right here." O'Neill suggests.

"I'm not above carrying you to the bed myself, sir."

"And I'm not above decking you, so let's just call it even, shall we?" He is normally a lot nicer to docs because they're basically helpful and have their own special means of exacting revenge, but he's not in a very good mood. He hears the doctor sigh in resignation, and he's pretty sure his records will contain the words "against medical advice". It's doc-speak for insubordination.

Doc-speak for what she has, O'Neill has learned, is called, "epidural hematoma" and she needs surgery as soon as they land. He doesn't know if that's because they can't operate on brains aboard ship or if it's because they don't want to operate on _this_ brain. Galactically speaking, the planet is very close to earth just like Carter said it would be and so he's okay with waiting because if anyone's going to take a Black & Decker to her head he'd rather it be someone at the SGC.

He doesn't know that they already did.

He watches her and pretends she's just sleeping which works until the nurse comes over and lifts her eyelids to peer in with a penlight and Carter doesn't move or even blink; and O'Neill's chest gets tight at the sight of it. But the nurse nods in satisfaction anyway and O'Neill is able to breath again. Then there is the matter of the thumb-sized thing sticking up from her head, which he has also been studiously trying to ignore until now.

"What's that?" he nods toward the creepy bit of plastic.

"A bolt, sir."

He flinches. "Couldn't they come up with a better name than _that_? She's not Frankenstein, for crying out loud."

The nurse smiles painfully. "It fits."

Fortunately O'Neill's all-to-vivid imagination is interrupted by Colonel Ronson's voice. "Just about there, sir. We'll take you right to the SGC."

O'Neill turns and raises his eyebrows at the tall, serious commander of the _Prometheus._

"It's 2 a.m. and a small EM pulse will handle local air traffic control long enough."

O'Neill nods in agreement. Somehow, the thought of it still being night is a comfort. He doesn't want to deal with the day, just yet.

"One more thing, General." Ronson reaches into the breast pocket of his flight suit. "Central supply found this in your pocket." He hands O'Neill the damp, folded piece of paper.

O'Neill takes the note and starts to open it, then looks up. "Thanks, Colonel." The commander nods and leaves him to read it alone. It's a crossword puzzle, done in tiny, meticulous Carter handwriting. The questions are on the back, more than fifty of them, and they're all things they've done or seen together, not all of them good which strikes him as an unusually healthy attitude toward all the crap they've been through. "Happy Sunrise, Sir." it reads across the top. Tears fog his vision as he realizes she just couldn't wait for spring.

---------------------------------------------------

"How did you find us?" O'Neill asks. Hammond has wisely decided to go ahead with the debriefing to keep their minds off of what is going on two floors below.

"An erudite process of elimination," McKay explains grandly.

"A neutron star pair." Daniel clarifies.

"Does that have gravity?" O'Neill wonders aloud.

"An enormous amount." McKay states.

"Okay, then don't get too puffed up, McKay. Carter would've had us off of there in just a little while longer." O'Neill smiles. "But we do appreciate the effort. And the timing."

Hammond slides her notebook across to him. "Jack, what's this?"

"Carter's notebook. She used it when the computer ran out of juice."

Hammond looks patiently at him.

"Oh- you mean what's _in_ it?" He opens it up. "It's full of stars. And really weird glyphs on the gate. Maybe you'd get something out of it..." he slides it across the table, veering away from McKay's reach. "..._Daniel._"

Undeterred, McKay peers over his shoulder as Daniel leafs through the first few pages. McKay whistles, impressed. "Wow. She was trying to translate Earth's coordinates into your point of view? That's superhuman. I don't think even Sam could do it."

"She started with _Starry Night_." Jack shrugs. "And I helped. A little." He's not the only one in the room who is surprised that Jack O'Neill would admit to engaging in such a nerdy activity, never mind actually _doing_ it.

"_You_ helped?" McKay says in disbelief. He narrows his eyes and regards Jack with suspicion. "There must be something in the water up there."

For once Jack has no smartass comeback at his disposal as he wonders if he's really that transparent or just paranoid.

"There is no water on P3X-124, Dr. McKay." Teal'c interjects. "There is only snow."

The entire group chuckles at Teal'c's chronic problem with Tau'ri turns of phrase, but O'Neill catches the smallest of smiles at the corner of the Jaffas's eyes as they meet his, and he understands Teal'c just saved his ass as surely as Jack saved Teal'c's on the very first day they met.

St. Harriman suddenly appears in the doorway. "General."

"Yes?" Hammond replies.

Walter shifts slightly. "Uh- O'Neill. They're done, sir."

O'Neill turns to Hammond without a word but he knows exactly what O'Neill wants. "Go on, Jack. We'll finish this later."

He and SG-1 meet Warner in the observation room, where they can't actually observe Carter but only the bandages, equipment and a flurry of people that mark her approximate location. Immediately O'Neill notices that the staff are moving in a deliberate but relaxed manner and then he sees that Dr. Warner is smiling broadly."She's going to be fine," the doctor says, squeezing O'Neill's shoulder with a hand that seems far too big to be mucking around in people's heads.

"Thanks, doc." He stares out at the busy room, anchoring himself with one set of fingertips on the solid glass as his life starts to come back to him. He has had his soul saved twice in one day and he's going to make that mean something, somehow. But then a new thought enters his mind and his temporary relief retreats. "What about frostbite?"

"Frostbite?" Warner says with a sly grin, "I _was_ going to compliment you on your pre-emptive use of hypothermia to treat elevated intracranial pressure in the field, General."

"_What_?' O'Neill's pretty sure he can't do anything that involves that many syllables.

"I think he means it was probably a good thing she was cold." Daniel explains, reinforcing Jack's belief that sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

"Exactly," the doctor affirms. Turning to leave, he pauses. "Does Colonel Carter have any family nearby?"

Jack says evenly, "Yes, she has a fiancé." He doesn't see Teal'c's eyes glance over to him and then straight ahead to the wall just behind the doctor.

"Good. She's going to need all the help she can get."

"I thought you said she'll be all right." Daniel points out anxiously.

"Oh, she will. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if she has some retrograde amnesia. She'll need people to spend time with her and help jog her memory a bit." He breaks the tie of his paper mask with a jerk and tosses it into the trash as he turns to leave. "But don't worry. When it's all said and done she'll probably only forget the day of the accident."

TBC…….


	6. The Light of Day

This chapter mostly plays out inside Jack's mind. Things go horribly, terribly wrong and McKay turns out to be an unwitting ally.

There's a bit of bad language in here, but you'd swear, too, if you were Jack.

(See if you can spot my homage to the poem "High Flight." If you don't know about this poem and its pilot author, its worth looking up.)

* * *

**The Light of Day**

It's late at night when O'Neill finally slips back down to the quiet infirmary. When he was her colonel it was acceptable for him to hover around her bed, but now he's got the entire SGC to run and can't be overly concerned with just one of many officers under his command. Or at least that's the way it's supposed to work but he'd be kidding himself to think that it ever really has.

Carter has her own nurse, stationed like a watchdog at the foot of her bed. "Good evening, General," the impossibly young airman greets him. "She's doing well."

"Yeah?" O'Neill says dubiously, surveying the yards of tubes and wires that wrap around her body. There's a soft swish and click keeping time to the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket as he sits down wearily beside her.

She looks so fragile, her fine features apparently carved from pure ivory with the exception of the dark circles beneath her eyes. Golden wisps of hair curl out from beneath the bandage encircling her head, but more on one side than the other. "You got your haircut, after all, Carter" he says softly, brushing her cheek with his fingers, "but I don't think you're gonna like it."

The nurse focuses on his computer with a solemn look and then says he really needs something at the far side of the room, leaving O'Neill alone with her, and suddenly he feels that the gravity on earth is much stronger, and the air heavier. It's been harder to move and harder to breath ever since he came through the base elevator doors as if the weight of his obligations and expectations are a thick miasma, surrounding and permeating everything he does, says and thinks.

But not what he feels. Even the thought of Pete being by her side is clean and sharp in its pain. He looks at her and everything is clear.

----------------------------------

The next morning he heads to his office but finds General Hammond still ensconced behind O'Neill's own desk. "With all due respect, sir, don't you have higher-quality crap to shovel?"

"I can do my job from anywhere, Jack."

"Oh, that's unfortunate." O'Neill sympathizes.

"You need a little time off." Hammond says, making a point of looking at his watch.

"It's all right, sir."

"Since you'll be here anyway?"

"Yup." O'Neill nods, and then suddenly realizes that might have been the wrong answer.

Hammond appears to take it in stride. "How is Colonel Carter?"

"Okay, I guess. We'll know more by this afternoon." O'Neill pauses. "Thanks for sticking around, General."

Hammond smiles. "Thanks for making it back alive, Jack. And for bringing Colonel Carter with you."

----------------------------

By that afternoon Carter has lost half of her attachments and O'Neill is sitting by her bedside waiting for something to happen, when it does- but not exactly as he expected.

"General O'Neill."

"Mr. Shanahan." O'Neill gets to his feet.

"Is she better?" Anxiety is etched in his face as Pete moves between O'Neill and Carter and an irrational anger crawls up the back of O'Neill's neck.

"So far." He feels sick as he watches Pete pick up her hand. Sick and incredibly, intensely jealous that Pete can walk right in here and do that without a second thought. Up until now O'Neill has always felt he and Carter were just victims of circumstance, that things are the way they are. But at this precise moment in time he's overwhelmed with a feeling of _unfairness_, and that's new to him because he's never been given to self pity. But this is too much. It's not right- and if there's one thing he knows about himself it's that he thinks something isn't right, he wants to fix it.

And it's his abrupt recognition of this fact that causes a subtle but irrevocable and profound shift in his life, like a small adjustment in trajectory that will sling him out into space instead of staying in the same old orbit. Now it's just a matter of reaching escape velocity.

Pete, however, is not going to let O'Neill slip the surly bonds of earth quite that easily. "Sam, hon, can you hear me?"

O'Neill grits his teeth. He can't imagine calling Carter "hon" or any other pet name, for that matter. The complex, beautiful wonder that she is can't be summed up or described by any word other than "Carter", as far as he's concerned, although sometimes he might use "Sam," but he feels strangely vulnerable when he does it. He's only said "Samantha," a couple of times and that was just two days ago- but the memory of how he felt when he said it is enough to make him pass out right where he's standing.

He still feels the sting on his back caused by the very fingernails that are peeking out from under Pete's grasp; and with his heart pounding in his ears he watches Pete kiss her cheek, his eyes narrowing as a dark, primitive part of his subconscious hopes the smell of his own sweat is still on her skin. Intellectually, he knows Pete's a good guy but his intellect is barely in control at this point.

Before any more of O'Neill's atavistic tendencies can well to the surface, Pete releases her hand and sits down on the stool. "What happened up there?"

"Maybe you should wait and ask her." Maybe, he thinks, I should ask her, too. Because he doesn't really know her version of what happened up there. He knows what he thinks, what he feels to his core-and he certainly knows that he's never had sex like that before in his life- the kind that could make him crazy enough to want to kill Pete on the spot just moments ago. But he and Carter never got past the incredible rush of just being able to _feel_- without any guilt or restraint. There'd been no time to talk, least of all about the future.

Yet, the future is here and it is demanding a plan and he can't make anything right until he knows what "right" is.

Pete has been staring thoughtfully at Carter, but it's as if he's been listening to O'Neill think. "Is there something I should know, General?" He doesn't sound surprised, and that disturbs O'Neill more than a little.

"You're her fiancé," O'Neill points out. "Shouldn't you want to know _everything_?" Because he sure as hell would want to, if only to make up for the times that he wasn't allowed to ask.

"Yeah. I'm her fiancé. And you're her commanding officer." Pete replies, neatly categorizing them both.

And that is when O'Neill realizes they are most definitely back on earth.

The two men are silent, neither one of them willing to leave, when Carter moves her hand up to her head and her eyes flutter without opening. "Oh, God," she whispers, her voice cracking under the pain. "Jack."

"Hon, you're home. You're on earth." Pete takes her hand again, obviously thinking she's asking for O'Neill out of circumstance and not choice. And he's completely missed the fact that she's asked for the man and not the officer.

O'Neill is transfixed, frozen to the spot as she opens her eyes and repeats his name again, giving him no option but to go around Pete to the head of the bed and bend over her, touching her shoulder. "It's all right. We're at the SGC." Her eyes seem to focus on his face for an instant and she nods, then a wave of pain presses her eyelids closed again.

"Sir," a voice tentatively reaches out from behind him. He straightens and turns to find one of the nurses standing there with another IV pump. "Let me give this to her. It's for the pain."

O'Neill nods. Concern and dismay flash across Pete's face as he notices he's been completely shut out of this little scene and no one seems to notice besides him.

"And sir- General Hammond wants to see you right away." Seeing his reluctance to leave, the nurse adds, "This medicine will let her sleep."

"All right," he says, and suddenly the concern and dismay belong to him.

---------------------------------------

O'Neill's almost to his office when he encounters Kerry Johnson coming out of it. He still has Pete's voice ringing in his ears and it strikes him that he's got his own little soap opera playing right here in the SGC. At this point it wouldn't surprise him if Hammond has called him up here to tell him that Carter is pregnant with twins.

"Welcome back, Jack." Kerry's smile is strained but genuine. He should feel guilty, but he doesn't and that pretty much indicates what the status of this relationship has been.

"It's good to be back, Kerry." He looks from her through the window to where General Hammond is reading a file at O'Neill's own desk, then back to her again.

"You look good."

"Thanks." He still can't figure out what she's doing. "You were looking for me?"

"No- " she smiles painfully, "I mean yes- I just wanted a word with General Hammond."

"Okay…" he's waiting for her to elaborate. But instead she just reaches out and briefly brushes her fingers reassuringly across the back of his hand.

"Good luck, Jack."

He watches her go and wonders if it was obvious all along or if it's because she's CIA. Feeling a bit wary, he raps lightly on the doorjamb and Hammond looks up and nods. O'Neill forgets why he's there and instead gives the general the good news. "Colonel Carter's awake, sir."

Hammond smiles, but not as much as O'Neill thinks he should. "That's terrific." He contemplates O'Neill for a moment. "Come on in and close the door, Jack."

O'Neill cocks his head in suspicion and complies. This day seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket, but that's nothing new.

"Have a seat."

"Close the door _and_ have a seat." O'Neill smiles uneasily. "I'm in big trouble, aren't I?" He doesn't sit down.

"You and Carter were gone for quite a while." Hammond doesn't even bother with a decent segue, O'Neill notes.

"Not even overnight, sir."

Hammond is not amused. "You were on active duty the whole time."

"Where are you going with this, sir?" O'Neill asks bluntly, knowing full well what the answer will be.

"Look, Jack, we all had our- concerns."

"_Really_?" It's plain now to O'Neill that they were found guilty as soon as they came up missing, and he sincerely regrets not giving in to his instincts from the moment he first held her in the blazing heat of the back yard. "No points for trying, sir?"

"You've got a lot of points, and it's not just for trying." Hammond sighs. "But you're about to fail the class anyway. There are _written_ allegations against you now."

A cold acceptance settles in O'Neill's mind. The problem, he understands, isn't so much what they've done. It's who he _is_, or, more specifically, who his enemies are. There's been no adultery, no violation of DADT, no compromise to his command and Hammond should be dealing with this, not an Article 32 investigation.

"Allegations by whom?"

"I don't really know." Hammond shrugs. "Woolsey? He was there when Kinsey mentioned you two to President Hayes." Not that it matters, since the Air Force will conduct its own investigation now.

O'Neill sighs. "Woolsey's a one-man clusterfuck. Sir."

"Maybe, but he's by the book."

As opposed to me, O'Neill speculates.

"And he's often right, isn't he?"

O'Neill doesn't answer because he doesn't need to.

Hammond studies him closely for a few moments and then says, "I think I know of a way out for you."

"Interestingly enough, I was just on my way to talk to you about that." O'Neill presses his lips together for a moment, struggling for control. "But you know what? Screw it. I'll retire when I'm good and ready."

"Jack…"

O'Neill tunes out Hammond as he feels one of his worst nightmares coming true. He could live with retiring but she has a stellar career, literally and figuratively, and that's one fight he won't walk away from. "How the hell can they justify doing this right now when she's so sick?"

"I think that's the point. They're not really after her. They just want you to self-destruct."

"Gutless bastards." O'Neill knows the reasons behind the regs and agrees with them. Ever since that day that computer virus on steroids invaded Carter because it knew she was his soft spot. And he finds it highly ironic that there's an equally malicious entity out there trying to do the exact same thing to her for the exact same reason using the rules that are supposed to protect her. To get at him. And maybe get at a few other people, too.

"What about you, sir? I'd hate to think you're in my blast radius." A less compassionate commanding officer would have separated them years ago and he knows that no good deed ever goes unpunished.

But Hammond looks surprisingly unperturbed. "I wanted to offer you a way out…"

"And I said…"

"… by coming to work in Washington."

"What?" O'Neill is completely taken by surprise, "But- sir…"

"You're the biggest pain in the neck I ever had under my command?"

"Something like that."

Hammond grins. "I need someone who can stand up to the suits, Jack. And I'll get my revenge by retiring and leaving you in charge."

"Revenge on whom, sir?" O'Neill asks, completely serious for a change. "Me or the government?"

"That's a yes, I take it?"

O'Neill nods, still in shock. "Thank you."

"This should solve your problem, and it certainly solves mine. But I'm not letting the cat out of the bag just yet because it'll make you an even bigger target than you already are." Hammond gets up from the desk and they leave O'Neill's office together. "Don't tell anyone anything until the ink is dry."

"Yes, sir."

"And it goes without saying that you can't see Colonel Carter except on the strictest professional terms and never alone. Not until this is over."

O'Neill doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to do that, but he does know that Hammond is right. He's probably already done and said too much, when he really needs to pretend like that last two months never happened.

------------------

The days pass inexorably and the routines of being back slowly reassert themselves, pressing them both back into the molds they were in before the trip to P3X-124, and there isn't a damn thing O'Neill can do about it. One week later, he's sitting at his desk with the crossword puzzle she made. It might be the very first one in which he's answered every question correctly. He wants to send it to her, to jog her memory through the intrabase mail, but he reflects that they're just damn lucky that it isn't in that notebook and he wonders what else might be. So he folds it up and keeps it with him and decides that if she remembers what she tore out of the book, it'll be worth it to hand it over. And if she doesn't he'll just keep it to himself and spare her the questions that lead nowhere.

So he visits her like a concerned CO should and jokes about her hair and nothing else passes between them because he simply can't take the chance. A member of SG-12 is brought back dead. Replicators temporarily invade the SGC. Someone at the Pentagon wants to know why the iris at the Alpha site can't be steel since trinium costs so much. And it dawns on O'Neill that although the world they were stuck on doesn't turn it's this one that doesn't change.

Dr. Warner thinks her memory seems fine and asks if O'Neill can corroborate her mission report. It's a short report as it should be for a mission of no strategic significance. The few relevant details are all there, except the things that are relevant only to him because she can't write down how she cried out her anguish when he was nearly killed or how he cried out his pleasure when she nearly killed him herself. And he can't ask a neurologist if it's possible to have a selective memory loss of love.

Warner recommends she be in a non-combatant position for at least six months and O'Neill signs the papers to send her to Area 51. He expects her to drop by and say good-bye to her former CO but she doesn't.

Teal'c informs him she has broken her engagement to Pete Shanahan. O'Neill is understandably thrilled with the news and it's killing him not to contact her, but he can't exactly send her a memo about _that._

Her field notes turn up missing and no one has a clue where they went since he left them on the table after the debriefing. He considers finding them a very low priority given the MALP has all the data on the gate and the ship's crew can report what little there is to say about the village; but if the investigators want to go through his house and office looking for that notebook, then they're welcome to do it. And they do, but they don't find anything except an old Simpsons tape he thought he'd lost and for that he thanks them profusely.

He's scheduled for a deposition but before it takes place General Hammond calls as if on cue and congratulates him on his new position in Washington. No one ever asks him a thing about Lt. Colonel Carter. His lawyer sends him a letter stating that the investigation has been closed due to lack of evidence and because the situation has been resolved to the Air Force's satisfaction since both of them have been reassigned.

It's now been twelve weeks since they got back and he's starting to doubt his sanity but every day he remembers what she said. _It didn't start here. It won't end here._ He can't believe Carter could be wrong.

Today he's in the cafeteria drinking coffee and watching Daniel eat waffles when he's struck by the fact that things are exactly like they were in that time loop and it's not just because he's watched Daniel eat waffles a hundred times before. It's as if two months of his life were spent in an alternate reality and he has memories, dreams and scars that no one else shares or even acknowledges except for what's in a closed case file locked up and forgotten somewhere at JAG headquarters. But it's hundred times worse now because they shared a hell of a lot more than a few kisses that she can't recall.

"I wonder why she broke up with Pete." Daniel says idly, pushing a piece of waffle around in the syrup.

O'Neill just looks at Daniel and feels like a ghost in his own life.

"You're going out there tomorrow aren't you, Jack?" Daniel presses on, oblivious to the surreal nature of the conversation.

O'Neill puts down his cup and grounds himself in reality. "Yes, Daniel," he replies patiently to Daniel's rhetorical question. The _Daedalus _is returning and O'Neill intends to be there when it does. Having risked his life repeatedly with little acknowledgment from the higher-ups except for medals and promotions, he'll be there in person for the people who have to do it now. And then there is the fact that Carter happens to be there, too.

"Well, maybe you can find out. And get a look at her lab."

"I don't give damn what kind of lab you want, Daniel. You're still not going to Atlantis."

Daniel sighs. It was worth a try. But Atlantis is not the only issue at hand. "You can't just leave, Jack."

"The Air Force begs to differ."

"Don't be so literal." Daniel doesn't have anything to lose, now. He missed out on Atlantis and SG-1 has disintegrated right before his eyes. "She talks to us, but- I don't know. Something besides her head is bothering her and you need to fix it."

O'Neill returns to his coffee and the company of his own thoughts.

Teal'c has been silent during the entire conversation, and in his usual economical fashion he goes straight to the bottom line. "I know what happened with Colonel Carter and Pete Shanahan." He puts down his fork and looks at O'Neill. "She said she did not wish to make the jump."

"You mean 'leap'," Daniel corrects him, "That's what the phrase is: 'make the leap'."

"No, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c says resolutely, "she said 'jump'."

O'Neill puts down his cup because his heart is starting to pound so hard he's not sure he can keep from spilling it. "She said _what_?"

"She did not want to jump."

O'Neill _knows_ she remembers, now. He doesn't know what kind of game they're playing but it's well past time for him to skate to the puck.

------------------------------

It's a perfect blue-sky day as O'Neill's plane begins its descent into Groom Lake and his official first duty as part of HWS. The scenery is stark yet beautiful, a series of mountains and valleys thrown into sharp contrast by the light of the rising sun. And yet none of it registers in O'Neill's mind as he tries to plan his approach to Lt. Colonel Carter.

It's practical, logical and easy for him to drop by and see her this way. To do anything less would be odd. And she doesn't know that he knows she remembers and so they can literally pretend it was just some alternate reality with no bearing on the real world, if that's what she wants. He doesn't even have to face Daniel and Teal'c since he'll be going straight to Washington from here. There's a gentle bump and the tires squeal briefly on the runway and O'Neill knows he's finally come in for a landing.

Standing just outside the spacecraft's enormous hangar he greets each disembarking crewman until he comes upon Dr. Rodney McKay, dead last off the ship. "Well, General, I had no idea I was saving the next head of Home World Security when I got you off that planet," McKay says, managing to turn a compliment for O'Neill into a pat on the back for himself.

"I bet you're sorry now." O'Neill smiles and with his hat and sunglasses on it even looks convincing.

"Don't worry, I get the last laugh." McKay grins, digging through the large, unwieldy canvas briefcase he's carrying. He hands O'Neill a well-worn, familiar notebook. "I accidentally took this to Atlantis with my books."

"Oh?" O'Neill is shocked into near silence but he just comes across as mildly disinterested.

"So on the way back I killed some time running these glyphs through the ship's computer. She had the address to get off P3X-124, and didn't even know it!" he chortles. "Oh, I can't _wait_ to tell her."

O'Neill stares at the field notes in his hands. "I bet you can't," he says quietly.

"Well, off to the great white north," McKay says expansively, and he leaves O'Neill standing speechless on the tarmac.

--

TBC…


	7. High Noon Again

I have revised the story rating to "M" because of this chapter, just to be on the safe side. Thanks to gspin for the kick in the pants and aurora1101 for the hand-holding! I've also gone ahead and posted the epilogue, it's just a short follow-up.

* * *

**High Noon**

"…_She had the address to get off P3X-124, and didn't even know it!" he chortles. "Oh, I can't wait to tell her."_

_O'Neill stares at the field notes in his hands. "I bet you can't," he says quietly._

"_Well, off to the great white north," McKay says expansively, and he leaves O'Neill standing speechless on the tarmac._

_--------------  
_

It takes a few minutes for him to slip away from his obsequious assistant and find an empty office where he can be sure he won't be disturbed. In his hands is the key, he's sure. The answer to why Carter has been hiding from him under the cover of a convenient medical diagnosis. Although Jack can't really say she ever lied about it- he'd just made assumptions without really talking to her because he didn't want to deal with the fallout. And that's certainly nothing new.

He takes off his hat and tucks away his sunglasses before carefully taking the dog-eared volume in his hands, leafing through it slowly, memories of their time on the planet coming back to him as if it were a photo album. The first entries from P3X-124 that he finds are copies of the glyphs from the gate, some of them written in his brief, impatient style as if getting stranded was nothing more than an annoying flat tire on the way home. About halfway through are his hesitant calculations with her sure interpretations right next to his and it's like he is still lying next to her on the porch in the soft evening light. There's a torn page where she removed the paper for his puzzle, and he runs his finger along the jagged edge and thinks about the joy and anticipation on her face when she decided she wanted to brave the cold and bring it to him.

Finally, he comes across a cartouche circled in red ink with exclamation points and McKay's unintelligible handwriting beside it, and turning the page, he notes that this address- _earth's_ address- is the last entry in the book with a dozen blank pages following it. It's apparent that McKay's desire to feel smarter than Carter has blinded him to the other obvious message contained in those six symbols.

Carter knew the way home, but didn't want to go.

He remembers how she stubbornly stayed out in the snow during those last few hours and he realizes he never saw her write in the book once in the half-dozen times that he'd checked on her that night. And how agitated she'd been when he'd brought her in.

_Time is running out, and I don't know the answer._ He'd thought she was talking about the gate address, but she'd been talking about _them_.

O'Neill slowly lifts the front cover of the book and watches it fall shut on its own. Then he rubs his face with both hands as he recognizes how shortsighted he's been- and that's just when he's not been completely blind. What had started out as a barrier he put up to protect them both had turned into an obstacle course over the past few years, and she did what she had to in order to get through it. And now she's paying the price.

He gets to his feet and tucks his hat under his arm, and then picking up the notebook he walks off to set the record straight.

----------------------------------------

Sam watches anxiously as the carefully packed crates are unloaded by a pair of gangly young airman who don't seem all that certain about where their own arms and legs are, much less the corners of the box. "You know, you really can't miss the floor- just- just leave it there. Good." She nods vigorously as the last one settles onto the tile in her new, spacious lab, her hands guiding it the last few centimeters. Her eyes cautiously follow the airmen out, and as they leave another one steps in and shuts the door- a major general in service dress whom she recognizes so very well.

"Nice digs, Carter." O'Neill thinks she looks exactly the same as she did when she realized the DHD couldn't get them home. Shocked and uncertain, but not afraid.

"Sir," she says, blinking once as she hears him turn the lock. Her hair has grown in, but it's cropped close in a blonde fringe that only serves to frame her face and wide blue eyes.

"You're gonna have to work on that, Carter." He looks at her steadily and she seems to know that her cover has been blown as she nods and perhaps develops the tiniest of smiles.

"So are you, Jack."

He sets his hat down on a desk just inside the doorway as if he's been here a dozen times before, but really it's just because he's afraid he'll drop it, and then he hands her the open notebook because he can't trust himself to speak. She looks at it with a deep sigh and Jack can't decide if it's relief or resignation he sees on her face. Maybe both. "McKay figured it out," she says.

"He figured it out, but I did the math."

"I'm sorry, Jack."

"I never understood that the first time you said it." The remorse in his voice is so thick he can barely force the words out. "I made you fly blind. I always have."

She shakes her head quickly. "I know how hard it is for you. You're a good man, a good officer. Too good." Her eyes are glistening now as she fights to tell him what he needs to know. "And the charges against you were my fault. I had to give you the chance to undo everything I did."

"_We_ did."

"I shouldn't have put you in that position, sir."

"Oh, I don't know, Carter. It wasn't _that_ kinky."

She smiles briefly and looks down, but this time he's not going to let her hide. He reaches out and takes hold of her upper arm, pulling her toward him. It's completely unlike him to do that, but she brings out a lot of surprising things in him, she always has, and that's what he craves. He wants to feel the way he did when they were lost, when the world was just stripped down to its essential ingredients- her, him and a will to survive.

She's still too thin, his hand easily encircling her arm even with her lab coat on and his breath catches in his throat as he understands that she's been stuck just like him, in her own personal hell, trying to do the right thing and being wrong the entire time. "Hammond promoted me to save my sorry ass and you didn't know, did you?"

She smiles with pride as she runs her fingers over the new star on his epaulet and for the first time Jack actually gives a damn about that kind of thing. "That's not the reason he did it, but no, I didn't know until yesterday. It doesn't make everything all right, though."

It finally dawns on Jack that to Sam Carter the scientist, withholding even irrelevant data is unethical and she won't cut herself some slack for being less than perfect. He holds her close, just feeling her breathe, immersing himself in the sensation of being near her. "Do you know what I'd have said? If you'd told me right away that you had the address?"

He can feel her shake her head silently against his shoulder.

"I'd have asked for one more day."

-------------------------------------------

The sound of metal on concrete indicates to Sam that Jack is home, followed by the "Son of a _bitch_!" that confirms it. She stops tentatively by the open garage door and knocks on the wooden frame.

Jack looks up from the workbench, his look of consternation rapidly fading as he sets down the wrench he'd just retrieved from the floor. "Hi."

"Hi."

He's been waiting for so long and there's so much to say, but first he has to find the words, and there are none to be had. He stares at her for a moment and then reaches for a rag and wipes his hands.

"I like this part of Alexandria," Sam says.

"It's nice. A little crowded, but I'm not here much." He doesn't use the word 'home,' because he doesn't really have one anymore. It's certainly not here.

"I can't believe you brought that back." She walks into the building, her hands jammed tightly in her pockets.

"Sentimental value." He pats the vat fondly. "I happened to be out at Area 51 anyway," he glances over at her, "and they didn't want it anymore."

Her eyes are drawn inexorably back the contraption. Admiring her restraint, he taps a nut on the flange that fixes the tubing to the bottle. "Stuck."

"Ah."

"Go on. You know you want to." He watches her step up to the workbench, and can't help but notice how terrific she looks. What she's doing to that pair of jeans is probably illegal in ten counties including the one he's in. She's getting her curves back and he appreciates that, in more ways than one.

She runs her finger around the stubborn hardware. "That Allen wrench won't work. You'd get a lot more torque out of a socket wrench without stripping it."

"I'm plenty torqued as it is, Carter."

"I see that." She motions toward the driveway. "I can go buy you a set."

"Later." He leans back against the workbench and sets down the rag. "How'd it go in Colorado?"

"Hard."

Jack nods. "Yeah, I know."

"But I'm closer to Cassie this way, and they don't need me anyway."

"That's good," he says a little too quickly, then stops. "I mean… I don't mean that..." Someday he hopes they'll both learn to talk. It doesn't look like today's the day, though. "It's safer in Nevada," he finally says.

She smiles at his awkwardness and he can feel a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Her eyes are sparkling in that way that makes him think all kinds of sappy thoughts he thought he was too old and cynical for, and if she turns that smile up another notch he'll be down on one knee in seconds. But he figures they've both had enough drama for a while. "How long can you stay?" he asks. He thinks that sounds a little less intimidating than _Marry me, dammit._

"As long as you want me to."

"Yes. Well, that would be for the rest of your life- but for the good of the country, I'm willing to compromise," he says generously, slipping his thumb through her belt loop.

"That's very big of you," she teases.

Something's very big of him, Jack suddenly notices, but it's not what she thinks. He pulls her closer, needing her in so many different ways that sometimes it's a little overwhelming and he can't really sort through it in his mind, much less articulate it and so he decides he's finished talking. He kisses her gently, and it's as if his life is focused right here in this moment in this garage like light through a magnifying glass; and the thought of how perilously close he'd come to having her completely out of his life is too close. It's still too recent, too close to this reality and he needs to do what he can to seal that possibility away, send it off down its own timeline and let some other Jack O'Neill lead a ruined life. And given how many times he could have lost her, there are a lot of those Jack O'Neills out there.

His other hand slips behind her head, weaving his fingers through her hair, keeping her steady against the increasing pressure of his mouth until the intensity of it causes her to break away. But he doesn't mind not kissing her lips if it means he can give her neck his undivided attention, if he can draw his tongue along her collarbone and press the soft skin under her jaw between his teeth until that's too much for her, too.

"Jack," she whispers, surprised by his sudden assault.

"What?" he says softly, lifting his head to speak directly into her ear. "Should I invite you in for a beer?" He slips her jacket off of her shoulders. "Maybe see if the Vikings are playing today?" There's an edge in his voice as he lays the jacket on the workbench and turns back to her, his hands resting on the swell of her hips, his eyes meeting hers. The spark that was there has smoldered into a deeper glow and it still makes him want to get down on his knees only now it's for a far less innocent reason. "If you don't know me by now, there's not much I can do."

Jack knows that sounds like the worst kind of ultimatum, but given what they do for a living he's not sure if they'll have a happily-ever-after, so he'll take right-damned-now if he can.

Her fingers are tracing along the side of his face and he's not sure what she sees but he feels like an open book and that's new for him, and a little frightening, if he'd go so far as to admit that to himself. Which he can't- but it's still a thrilling reassurance when she kisses him and he knows she understands him, because it's important to him that she know all of the multiple complicated reasons why he intends to screw her senseless.

He takes her by the hand and leads her into the house, shutting off the lights and closing the garage door on their way out just to show he hasn't lost his mind quite yet, and he doesn't want her distracted by things left undone. In the afternoon light of the bedroom he finally gives in to the desires that have been at the edges of his thought and fully occupying his dreams for the better part of four months. Her clothes disappear and finally he's got his hands on her, soft skin and curves wherever his mouth and hands can wander. He appreciates her height, the expanse of skin from her smooth, rounded shoulders, across the graceful curve of her back to the appealing swell of her ass. She's strong and supple and there's a current flowing between them, a desire to take and be taken and he doesn't have to worry about breaking her.

He committed her to memory during that fleeting, intimate morning they spent together months ago and it's been one of the few things he's had to sustain him ever since. So he notices that she's changed- not only less thin but softer, less muscular than before and just knowing that gives him a unique satisfaction as well as a desperate hope that they'll both be around long enough for him to go through every little change and flux, ebb and flow of time with her and somehow run out the clock on their military duties. But the feel of her lips on his throat, sucking his skin into her mouth, little nips and kisses wipe time completely out of the equation and he's suspended in space connected to the world only by her hands, her mouth and her body as the last of his clothes hit the floor and he's finally able to pull her into his bed.

She murmurs something against his ear, something about how she feels or he feels but it's all the same now because there's no boundary, they're molded together and when she moves he moves unwilling for the tiniest amount of contact to be lost. His skin is on fire, her touch exquisite as she traces patterns across him, not formulae but magical spells and they're definitely conjuring up some very wicked spirits, her fingernails dragging lightly across his waist, his belly, from the crest of one hip to the other. She breathes against his lips, a lost, yearning sigh and moves again, warm and soft and smooth against him as her fingernails trace down his rigid, heavy length and he has a distant memory of her talking about feedback loops and electricity and things exploding.

There's another sigh, another squirm, another delicate caress and he breaks the circuit with his tongue in her mouth and takes her hands in his hands. Her body rises against him and he's not sure if it's desire or because she's pissed at being stopped in the middle of a project but she's suddenly a handful in more ways than one as she proves by rolling him flat on his back. Her aggression totally turns him on. "Oh, _Carter_," he taunts her, her eyes flashing back at him, "I can take it, trust me." Because even when he loses he wins, and it's a delicious victory as he catches her full, round breast and tight nipple with his mouth, working her over with his lips, his teeth, his tongue and all she can do is arch and twist and breathe his name and he swears he can feel the charge building up in her, too.

Jack can't control those elegant, strong legs, though as she strokes his body with the smooth skin of her inner leg, knee and thigh, sweet friction teasing him mercilessly, entwining her limbs with his, pressing against him until the temptation is just too much. He frees one hand so he can sink his fingers into the flesh of her ass, gripping and caressing her thigh, drawing her legs around him, the wet heat between them burning the tips of his fingers. She's got her hand in his hair, clutching his head then his neck, shoulders, moving tortuously against him, reaching for him.

But he's not ready for this to be over and he's through playing games. He grips her hips tightly and with one last kiss releases her breast, and then using his weight and strength to his advantage he turns and pins her to the bed. He doesn't care if he's being unfair as he holds her still, immersing himself in her scent and the taste of her sweat as he kisses his way down her stomach, pausing to drive the tip of his tongue into her belly button in a blatant hint at what he intends to do next. He slips down, gently biting her skin when her fingers tighten in his hair and she cries out, pleading in sweet frustration.

If there's one thing that's always been true it's that whenever Carter says "please," he does whatever she asks.

He had intended to take his time, to make her fly apart under his fingers and mouth and have the incredible privilege of putting her back together again but his resolve shatters at the sound of the need in her voice. He's driven, every part of him aching for that ultimate connection, to possess her like she possesses him because he's discovered the only thing worse than losing Samantha Carter is having her and losing her again. So he climbs back up her body and sinks in to her, claims her, hard and hot, his muscles taut and straining, pulse pounding, his eyes riveted to hers because he needs her to see straight into his soul and know she's never, ever going to be rid of him.

And he can see in her sky-blue eyes that's exactly what she wants. Her skin is flushed and damp, lips cherry red and swollen from the passion of his kisses, thighs parted wide to take him, ankles locked behind his back to keep him. He drives a little deeper just to watch her reaction, her erotic trance disrupted. "Beautiful," he whispers, dropping his lips to her temple. "So damn beautiful." He closes his eyes and his restraint slips away until he's moving slow and strong, grinding into her sweet, tight body at the end of every stroke until he feels her spasm and jerk, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, biting his chest to keep from screaming. Wiring completely overloaded, the fuses blow and so does he, deep, pushing her knees up and out, his back tensed from his neck to his thighs. And in the subconscious recesses of his mind, under thick layers of reason and common sense and against all the odds there hides a little hope that some of him will find a home in her and grow, binding her to him irrevocably and filling the void Charlie left in his heart.

But she's already filled in the rest of it, more than enough, certainly more than he deserves. Again she weeps and this time he thinks he knows why and it's nothing that needs to be fixed. It's a little like seeing earth from space, he thinks as he wraps her up in his arms. Perfect, beautiful and heartbreakingly fragile, and only the lucky few ever get to experience it.


	8. Epilogue

This is just pretty much just Jack and Sam flirting to wrap it up. And a mystery is solved.

Thanks to everyone for reading my story! PLEASE leave a review. (I mean, if you suffered through the whole thing then a couple more minutes isn't too much to ask, is it?)

Also, thanks to those who have posted a link in their different forums. I appreciate it very much and hope these last couple of chapters did not disappoint.

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

O'Neill's driver drops him off at the end of the day, or maybe the start of a new one because Jack quit wearing a watch after Carter came to Washington just to keep from checking it every ten minutes. He opens the door to his townhouse with a quiet sigh, because he's sure she's been asleep for hours. Much to his surprise, however, there's a light on in the corner of the front room and the fireplace is on, too, with Carter sitting on the floor in front of it, reading. If he squints it's not too hard to believe they're still on P3X-124. Unlike their stint on that planet, however, she smiles and gets to her feet and then comes over and kisses him gently, just a little kiss of appreciation, and he thinks maybe being here on earth isn't so bad after all. Except of course, she's leaving in the morning. "Is it terrible of me to like coming home to find you waiting with dinner..."

"...still in the fridge?" she smiles. "Is it terrible of me to like seeing you all dressed up every day?"

"Depends on if it's because you like me in blue or if you just have a thing for higher-ranking officers," he says as she loosens his tie and unbuttons the top button of his shirt and he decides service dress does have a serious advantage over a t-shirt and BDUs after all.

"I used to fantasize about you like that, you know."

"Really?" He's very entertained by that thought. "Dr. Major Samantha Carter PhD?" He slips his hands up under her sweatshirt, up along her bare back, because he can.

She smiles sheepishly. "Captain Carter."

"That far back?" It'll be a cold day in hell before he ever admits that he'd have liked to have his way with her on the briefing room table the first day they met. She doesn't need to know how hopeless he really is.

"Yeah."

He smiles and nuzzles her hair. "If I'd known it turned you on I'd have bucked for a promotion a lot sooner." He runs his index finger down her spine, slowly so she doesn't chill. "But I'm glad you're over that because I _never_ want you to call me 'Sir' in bed. "

"Why not?"

"Because when you call me that at work, _I'll_ be the one standing at attention_._"

She laughs and kisses his neck. "Then I suggest you wear your jacket, sir."

-------------------------------

They decide to have supper at an all-night diner within walking distance because neither one of them feel like much else. The moon is high in the clear sky as they stroll down the sidewalk, and Sam regards the familiar disc with a smile. "I missed it while we were gone."

"Yeah," Jack concurs, "and I've always liked the moon better than the sun, anyway."

"Really? Why?"

"It shines when you really need it."

She gives him a sidelong glance as he holds the door open for her and then she picks a little booth by the window and slips into it with a sigh, causing Jack to raise an eyebrow.

"Not looking forward to tomorrow," she replies to his unspoken question.

"Duty calls," he says, suddenly finding the menu makes very interesting reading. He can feel her eyes on his face but he doesn't look up until she turns to stare out the window at the few cars passing by.

"Yes," she says, almost absentmindedly, "I guess it does, for now."

"It can be for always. I'll survive."

"Aren't you tired of just surviving?"

"I've always been very _fond_ of surviving."

She turns with a small, wry smile and this time he manages to hold her gaze. "Look, Carter, if I have to pick between normal and you, I'll take you any day."

Sam isn't offended because they both know that sometimes the only deep conversation he's capable of having is one in which he digs himself a hole. That doesn't stop him from being a little frustrated with himself, though, and he sits back against the padded booth with a sigh.

She catches his hand before he's able to slip it off of the table and complete his retreat. And it's not just from stupid semantics and bad jokes- he doesn't want to talk about her leaving. The truth is, he doesn't give a shit if they've already blown a few million on her new lab or if she's the only one who can figure out this doodad or that data. And as sure as the sun will rise someone somewhere is going to have a problem only Carter can solve and she'll go, and maybe never come back again. "I can't protect you," he says abruptly.

"That's why you're here, Jack," she runs her fingers over his hand. "You shouldn't have to. I never thought you'd be happier with paperwork and politicians, but you are."

"It's not the paperwork and politicians that make me happy, Carter," he points out.

"Right," she acknowledges with a smile. "but you're not sending people through the gate anymore, either."

He can't deny that. He misses the SGC, but he doesn't miss the job. It's still not clear what that's got to do with the situation at hand. "So?"

"So worrying about my job is not your boat to row."

"That sounds like something I'd say."

"Does it, now?" she cocks her head in a perfect O'Neill imitation.

He smiles. "Where's that polite officer who won't smart off to her superiors?"

"She's around. Just not here."

"Yes. Point taken." It's going to be a little weird switching from Jack and Carter to General and... Carter, but he thinks he can probably handle that. The waitress arrives to take their order and after that he's feeling a little more optimistic. "So what's the plan?"

She shrugs. "I don't know."

He's taken aback. "Wow. Colonel Carter really _is_ MIA."

"I have what I want. The rest is just details."

Some details, he thinks. Twenty-five hundred miles apart, the constant threat of off-world travel and earthly disasters and God only knows what else. And then he feels like there's one of those mind-reading thingies on his head as he sees a series of images- Carter hurt, frozen, bound, possessed, dying, imprisoned, unconscious, lost.

She's right. The rest is just details.

There's just one detail he wants nailed down right now. "Wanna go fishing?"

"Name the date," she smiles.

He's been waiting for that answer for nearly six years. "As soon as Landry gives the boys some time off."

Sam nods enthusiastically and then her expression becomes more pensive. "Did they know?"

"Carter, they knew before we did. And so did everybody else."

"Then who blew the whistle?"

"The ship's nurse." He has to admit he never saw that one coming.

"_What_? I don't even remember the ship!"

Jack shrugs. "She was part of the medevac team and got a look at the house and the way I acted and put two and two together."

"And literally made a federal case out of it?" Sam gasps.

"She was just an 0-1. Thought she was doing her job." He shrugs. "And then there were those marks I left on your..."

"Jack!"

"Would you like some coffee?" the waitress interrupts with impeccable timing.

"Two cups. Decaf."

"You're kidding!" Sam whispers sharply.

"Oh, I'm sorry. A diet soda for her, please." The waitress leaves and he turns to her with a smug smile. "Of course I'm kidding." But she doesn't really believe him and he can't blame her for that.

"I'm going to get a look at those charges," she says, sitting back with a determined air.

"You can't. They're against me, not you." His smile gets even more smug."Besides, she was right, wasn't she?"

Sam grins about as evilly as she can, which is not very much. "I'm not sure I remember."

"Then this can jog your memory." He smiles and takes out his wallet and removes the crossword puzzle. It's almost falling apart from the folding and refolding that it's been subjected to for the last four months but she can see that every single answer is correct, perfectly written with no erasures.

"You kept this."

It wasn't his intention to make her cry and for a moment he just wants to take it back. "It was all I had."

"I never forgot anything, Jack. And I wasn't going to stay away."

He studies her face for a long moment. "I know." He takes it gently out of her hands, refolds it and puts it away. "So make me another one of these in eight years."

"No problem." her face brightens at the prospect.

"No problem? I'm giving you the answers first- _then_ you write the questions." He can just see her mind working at the pleasant thought of a puzzle to solve. "The first answer is 'Any time you're ready,' and the second is, 'Tahiti.'"

She smiles and he knows she's already got him figured out.


End file.
